14/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: This hybrid documentary by Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmad, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, Rawia Alhag, Phil Cox and Anas Saeed tells the story of horror and hope its protagonists have gone through

Sudan's recent history has been one of dictatorship and the most coups in modern Africa. But these complex events fade into the background in Khartoum [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmad, Tim…
film profile], a hybrid documentary made by British writer-director Phil Cox, the independent film institute Sudan Film Factory, and emerging Sudanese filmmakers Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmad and Timeea M Ahmed. The film, now screening in the Berlinale's Panorama strand after its world premiere at Sundance, instead focuses on the experiences of five protagonists who were forced to flee to East Africa as a new civil war between the military and the militia broke out in 2023. 

At that time, Cox started working with the filmmakers, filming on donated iPhones, as hope lit up the city that the protagonists say unites all Sudanese people, transcending the core clash between Arab and African identities. When the war started, production money was used to get both the directors and protagonists out of the country and bring them together in Kenya. Eventually, the film was finished using green screen and animation.  

Alternating between intimate pre-war footage, re-enactments, and the stories of the protagonists’ memories and hopes, the film is an emotional rollercoaster in which hope is replaced by fear and beauty clashes with the horrors of war, racism and displacement. In the opening montage, which combines dynamic cutting with psychedelic backgrounds representing dream states, we meet middle-aged Majdi, a civil servant; young Jawad, a resistance volunteer; 27-year-old Khadmallah, a street tea vendor and single mother; and best buddies and bottle collectors Lokain (11) and Wilson (12). 

The approach adopted by the filmmakers with their protagonists is extremely close and personal. They are flesh-and-blood characters whose presence is all the more intense in the joyful iPhone close-ups. In front of the green screen, they play out their memories, often standing in for each other’s friends and family members. These scenes occasionally depict real-life environments that pop up on the background, while at other times, the green screen is used for animations relaying their dreams: Majdi, a pigeon racer, flies over Khartoum on a giant pigeon, smoking shisha with a blissful smile on his face as he sees himself laying on the ground with the son that he is now separated from. Lokain and Wilson ride a lion in search of a hidden treasure. The alternating quality of the images, coming from either iPhones or professional cameras, as well as the emotionally wide dynamic range of the score, ranging from hopeful and playful to suspenseful, aptly reflect the ups and downs of their journeys. 

The fourth wall often disappears as we see the crew and their equipment and hear them discussing with the protagonists how to best go about their re-enactments over the green screen. There is indeed no wall between the filmmakers and the characters: as one of the protagonists bursts into tears after recreating a painful memory, the director comes into the shot and joins the group hug. They are all Sudanese regardless of their ethnic and social backgrounds, and Khartoum mirrors this fact as a true collaborative work between filmmakers and protagonists.

Khartoum is a co-production between Sudan’s Sudan Film Factory, the UK’s Native Voice Films, and Germany’s Light Echo Pictures. Autlook has the international rights.

Photogallery 19/02/2025: Berlinale 2025 - Khartoum

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Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed
© 2024 Dario Caruso for Cineuropa - dario-caruso.fr, @studio.photo.dar, Dario Caruso