Virginia Film Festival

During the 1970s and 1980s, as a myriad religious and political factions waged an endless civil war in Sudan, a group of filmmakers banded together to make a series of compelling short films. This program of eight shorts shines a light on a forgotten chapter of film history.

Afrika, Dzungli, Baraban I Revoljucija (Africa, The Jungle, Drums, and Revolution) 1979. USSR. 12 min. Director: Suliman Elnour. Suliman Mohamed Ibrahim Elnour’s diploma film from VGIK in Moscow, explores representations of Africa in Soviet society.

Wa Lakin Alardh Tadur (It Still Rotates) 1978. USSR. 18 min. Director: Suliman Elnour. Suliman Elnour’s graduation film depicts everyday life in 1978 at a school in Yemen.

Al Dhareeh (The Tomb) 1977. Egypt. 16 min. Director: Eltayeb Mahdi. Al Dhareeh tells the story of a man who claims to be able to heal people.

Al Mahatta (The Station) 1989. Sudan. 15 min. Director: Eltayeb Mahdi. Set in Sudan in the late 1980s, where people cross the desert on foot or cover long distances by car and truck, this film shows encounters at one of the large crossroads between the central capital, Khartoum, and Bur Sudan on the Red Sea.

Arba’a Marat Lil Atfal (Four Times For Children) 1979. Sudan. 20 min. Director: Eltayeb Mahdi. Arba’a Marat Lil Atfal depicts the everyday life of children in facilities and schools for children with physical and mental disabilities. 

Al Habil (The Rope) 1985. Sudan. 31 min. Director: Ibrahim Shaddad. Two blind men make their way through the desert accompanied by a donkey. Connected by a rope, sometimes the two men decide the way, and sometimes the donkey leads them.

Jamal (A Camel) 1981. Sudan. 13 min. Director: Ibrahim Shaddad. A report from the life of a camel, most of which plays out in the dreary, small setting of a sesame mill.

Jagdpartie (Hunting Party) 1964. East Germany. 40 min. Director: Ibrahim Shaddad. A Western-inspired treatise on racism made as a graduation project at the German Academy of Film Art in Potsdam-Babelsberg, this film was shot in a forest in Brandenburg, and  portrays a white mob’s hunt for a black farmworker.

Introduction by Samhita Sunya (UVA)

This film is part of the Middle Eastern and South Asian Sidebar supported by the UVA Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures and the UVA Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures.