Cinema of Sudan
Cinema of Sudan refers to both the history and present of the making or screening of films in cinemas or film festivals, as well as to the persons involved in this form of audiovisual culture of the Sudan and its history from the late nineteenth century onwards. It began with cinematography during the British colonial presence in 1897 and developed along with advances in film technology during the twentieth century. After independence in 1956, a first era of indigenous Sudanese documentary and feature film production was established, but financial constraints and discouragement by the Islamist government led  to the decline of cinema from the 1990s onwards. In the 2010s, several initiatives by Sudanese filmmakers both in Khartoum as well as in the Sudanese diaspora have brought about a revival of filmmaking and public interest in film shows in Sudan. Since 2019, Sudanese filmmakers such as Hajooj Kuka, Amjad Abu Alala, Suhaib Gasmelbari or Marwa Zein have attracted recognition on an international level. Cinema in colonial Sudan. Sudan saw some of the earliest filmmaking in Africa to take place in the British Empire: John Benett-Stanford, a soldier turned war correspondent, shot footage of British troops in 1897 , just before the Battle of Omdurman. This short and silent film was projected and sold in Britain under the title "Alarming the Queen's Company of Grenadiers Guards at Omdurman". In 1912, the British colonial authorities made a documentary film of King George V's visit to the country, and screened it in an open-air theatre in Khartoum. During the early years of the 20th century, pioneering filmmakers travelled up the Nile from Cairo to Khartoum and beyond, shooting films for curious audiences at home, for example in a documentary showing Lord Kitchener inspecting his troops in Khartoum. Starting  in the late 1920s, Greek businessmen, who had also been among the earliest photographers in Sudan, established cinemas for silent films in Khartoum. Other local businessmen later founded the "Sudan Cinema Corporation", which opened cinemas in other cities and distributed imported films. The magazine "El Fajr" had weekly pages on science, literature and movies. In her book "Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan" historian Heather J. Sharkey describes the influence of photographs and films through the British educational system: It was precisely in the emerging visual art of documentary films that Gadalla Gubara, reputed to  have been the first Sudanese cameraman, was trained for the Colonial Film Unit in Sudan. Cinema from independence up to the 2010s. When Sudan gained independence in 1956, the new authorities established the Sudan Film Unit to make short educational documentaries and newsreels, shown both in the cinemas of major cities as well as on mobile cinema trucks. In the 1960s, more than 70 cinemas in Khartoum and other major cities showed mainly Indian, Egyptian, American or Italian films, but also news and commercials. Despite the growing number of people who could afford television sets, the popularity of "going to  the movies" was considerable, as reflected by "Cinema Cinema", a weekly film show on the government-owned Sudan National Broadcasting Corporation television channel that had started in 1962. Further, a magazine in Arabic titled "Radio, Television and Theatre" was published, with an article about Cinema in Sudan in its 1978 edition. Starting in the late 1960s, Sudanese women also became professionally involved in various activities of radio and television: Wisal Musa Hasan was the first camerawoman in the Sudan Film Unit, as a short documentary clip from the archives of Sudan Memory shows. In an article about the rise and  decline of cinema in the city of Wad Madani, the popularity of "going to the movies" was explained in terms of its importance for public cultural life, providing a "fresh breath of freedom in light of the country's independence." For many urban dwellers, movie shows were the only public forms of entertainment at the time. This applied both to educated and less educated people, as well as to women and girls, who were admitted as families in the company of their male relatives. The first feature-length film made in Sudan was "Hopes and Dreams", directed in 1970 by  Ibrahim Mallassy in black and white. After that, very few feature films were made, mainly due to lack of funding. Hussein Shariffe, a Sudanese painter, poet and lecturer at the Faculty of Arts of Khartoum University, became known as a filmmaker from the 70s onwards. In 1973, he was head of the film section in the Ministry of Culture and Information and directed his first film, "The Throwing of Fire," a documentary about a ritual related to the power of fire, celebrated by the Ingessana tribe in the southern Blue Nile State". "This new artistic experience prompted him to return  to the United Kingdom to study film at the National Film and Television School. Until 1997, Shariffe made several documentaries, for example "The Dislocation of Amber", a poetic documentary about the historic port of "Suakin" on the Red Sea, or "Diary in Exile", an account of the life in exile of Sudanese in Egypt. In appreciation of Shariffe's artistic output, the Sudan Independent Film Festival, founded in 2014, is held annually on the anniversary of Shariffe's death. The Sudanese filmmaker with the most widely ranging work of more than 100 documentaries and newsreels, Gadalla Gubara, also produced feature  films, most notably the tribal love story "Tajouj" in 1979. His daughter, Sara Gadalla Gubara, who studied film making in Cairo as well as through training by her father, assisted him in his private film production company "Studio Gad" and became the first female filmmaker in Sudan. Sara's film "The Lover of Light" (2004) is both a metaphor of Gadalla Gubara and of his interest in bringing social issues to light through filmmaking. Established in 1989, the Sudan Film Group (SFG) in Omdurman, a non-profit organisation promoting film shows and the local film industry is composed of professionals  involved in filmmaking, artistic production and development communication. The SFG has produced films, organises shows, trainings and workshops and also screens films in outdated cinemas. After the military coup of 1989, Sudan's Islamist government, however, suppressed cinema, as well as much of public cultural life. As a consequence, the Sudanese Cinema Company was dissolved and the country's cinema screens showcasing Hollywood, Bollywood and Arabic movies were all eventually shut down, and later put up for sale. The old Coliseum Cinema, for example, became part of Khartoum's riot police headquarters. Movies from the 1960s, '70s, and '80s became  extremely rare to be seen, and those in the National Archives were locked away and neglected. Up to the 2020s, there is no film archive accessible to the public, and even still images from these periods are scattered all over the country. These economic and political restrictions, along with the rise of satellite TV and the Internet, led people to rather watch films in their homes and deprived Sudanese artists of public recognition, funding for the production or distribution of films, and, most of all, freedom of artistic expression. In his 2017 documentary "Sudan's forgotten films", Suhaib Gasmelbari created  a portrait of the last two remaining Sudanese film experts, Awad Eldaw and Benjamin Chowkwan, who had been trying for 40 years to take care of the National Film Archives. The archive holds about 13.000 films, and is critically endangered by neglect from the government, extreme weather conditions and a general disregard for historical films from the country's early decades since independence. Enjoying wider margins of expression, some filmmakers of Sudanese origin and living abroad made independent films about their country, like British-Sudanese filmmaker Taghreed Elsanhouri. Her documentaries "Our Beloved Sudan, All about Darfur, Orphanage of Mygoma" and  Mother Unknown explore both the complex as well as the film director's views as a member of the important Sudanese diaspora community. Revival of cinema and movie production since the 2010s. Aided by the introduction of digital film equipment, workshops for a new generation of filmmakers, independent funding and recognition at international festivals, the 2010s saw several successful initiatives to re-establish film activities in Sudan. In 2010, the Sudan Film Factory was founded as an independent association for networking and promoting cinema in and outside of the country, and in 2014, the Sudan Independent Film Festival started its  annual editions of growing popularity. As there is no specialised institution for training or public funding for producing or presenting films in Sudan, filmmakers are focussing on commercial, corporate, music or wedding videos, or by distributing their films online. Some are employed as freelancers for international media producers. For short or long documentary or feature films, they rely exclusively on private or foreign funding and cooperation. The Sudan Film Factory helps filmmakers access grants and loans. Other private entities offering grants and training to filmmakers in Sudan include institutions such as the local branches of the Goethe Institute and the  British Council, the Doha Film Institute, Filmmakers Without Borders (FWB), the Deutsche Welle Akademie Film Development Fund, and the AFAC - Arab Fund for Arts and Culture. Also, the 'Swiss Initiative' has been conducting workshops and training for filmmakers. The project is funded by UNESCO, as well as Swiss and international filmmakers. In 2014, Sudanese filmmaker Hajooj Kuka, who lives both in Sudan and abroad, made an internationally acclaimed documentary film about the ongoing attacks of the Sudanese army on the people in the Nuba mountains. Kuka's film "Beats of the Antonov" provides an artistic collage about war, music, and  local identity on Sudan's southern frontiers and could not be shown in Sudan under the government of the time. In 2015, director Mohamed Kordofani was awarded as best director at the Taharqa International Award for Arts for his short film "Gone for Gold". His second short film, "Nyerkuk" (2016), received numerous distinctions, including the Network of Alternative Arab Screens (NAAS) Award at Carthage Film Festival, the Jury Award at Oran International Arabic Film Festival, and the Black Elephant Award at the Sudan Independent Film Festival. In 2015, parts of the film archive of Gadalla Gubara were digitised by a  German-Sudanese film restoration project, and thus his documentaries about everyday life in Khartoum of the 1960s, as well as his feature film "Tajouj" could be shown to new generations in Khartoum as well as abroad. The 40-minute feature film "Iman: Faith at the crossroads", directed and written by filmmaker Mia Bittar, was produced in 2016 with the support of UNDP Sudan and presented the same year at the headquarters of the UN in New York. It tells four stories of young Sudanese, who have been attracted by terrorism, and is based on true events. In 2019, the documentary  Talking about Trees by Suhaib Gasmelbari, a story about three Sudanese filmmakers of the 1960s and the decline of cinema in Sudan, won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and other international festivals. The same year, the feature film "You Will Die at Twenty" by Amjad Abu Alala, a Sudanese filmmaker based in Dubai, won the "'Lion of the Future Award"' at the Venice Days, an independent film festival section held in association with the prestigious Venice Film Festival. A young female Sudanese filmmaker, who studied film direction in Egypt and Germany, is Marwa Zein. Her documentary "Khartoum Offside  tells the story of the first Sudanese women's soccer team in Khartoum. This film had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019 and won awards at other international film festivals. Suzannah Mirghani, who has been making short films since 2011, became internationally known through her sixth short film Al-Sit". The film won 23 international awards, including three Academy Award qualifying prizes in 2021. In February and March 2021, and in the context of measures for social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic, the British Council in Khartoum and local sponsors organised a film festival for  both European and Sudanese movies at an outdoor, drive-in cinema space, thus presenting film shows in a new way.