The resurrection of cinema in Sudan

The dead hero.

This is the reference that cinema receives in the Sudanese documentary

by

Suhaib

Gasmelbari (2019)

And for more than 30 years he was.

The dictator Omar al Bashir's regime resulted in unprecedented censorship of the seventh art – in a country that was entering its heyday in the 1960s – and in the closure of almost 70 theaters in urban areas.

This film recounts with an endearing humor the efforts of four veteran filmmakers who try to reopen one of them and is also a window to the conversation about what interests a people that lived without cultural freedom for too long.

This film is part of the fourth Itinerant African Film Festival (Muica), organized biennially in Colombia by the Otro Sur Foundation to build a bridge between the identities of the continent and the Andean country.

Cinema in Sudan has been conditioned by the country's political, historical and social developments, which had a profound impact on its production and dissemination.

The three decades of dictatorship were a parenthesis and a huge setback in the path that the nation was tracing.

However, censorship did not prevent films like

(2019) from being shot clandestinely under the regime.

This brave feature film, which was screened at the Cinemateca de Bogotá on Sunday, won the award for Best Documentary at the Berlin Film Festival and, in 2020, received the award from the jury and the public at the African Film Festival of Tarifa (FCAT) .

Here you can know the next stops of this door to the continent.

The director, Suhaib Gasmelbari (Sudan, 1979) studied Film at the Université Paris 8, in France, and worked as a freelance cameraman and editor for Al Qarra, Al Jazeera and France 24. This is his first documentary feature film and in it he displays the desire for recovering an old cinema, restoring and dusting off forgotten reels and lining up the chairs again for an audience that got used to living without the big screen.

For Salym Fayad, co-director of Muica and of the Otro Sur foundation, the resurgence of culture in Sudan has been “impressive, although much fought over”.

“Al Bashir's fall did not mean the end of violence and repression at all.

The transition is being very complex and with demonstrations that last for months, but it is shocking to see a generation so interested in producing art”.

The more than 28 films about Africa and its diaspora in the program were screened, in addition to the Colombian capital, in Cali, Cartagena and Buenaventura, El Valle, Quibdó and Nuquí, six corners with a strong Afro-descendant presence.

"The idea is that this sample not only reaches the moviegoing public or consumers of niche culture, but also Afro communities, victims of armed conflict, peripheral areas...".

'Talk about trees' is a declaration of love for the seventh art and resistance through humor

Ángel Perea, cultural researcher

The historical legacy, the legacy of slavery, the weight of stereotypes, social problems, the armed conflict... Colombia shares many similarities with several African countries.

“Although they seem to be very far away, it brings us very close,” says Fayad.

"We do not intend to give a master class on African cinema, but we do want to open the range and show that there is a much vaster reality and of great quality that it is essential to know in order to empathize between the two

."

The intention is to expand the reductionist imaginary around the continent.

And the way to do it is through this cultural platform and an exhibition that, during March – the month of African heritage in Colombia – will be exhibited in cultural centers, public libraries, schools and universities.

and that he will end up in the district jail.

The programming is a reflection of the infinite palette of stories told in the first person and, therefore, has films from different eras, animation, science fiction and LGTBI.

“We wanted to get away from re-victimizing or 'misery porn', which the director and screenwriter Luis Ospina coined,” he says.

La Muica travels from the urban pulse of Nigeria and the desert of Somalia, passing through the unexpected stories that emerge from a karate dojo and a boxing ring, sailing towards Afrofuturism and magical realism and opening a space for social resistance. and the vindication of diversity, with a forceful presence of the voices of the African diaspora in Latin America.

“In Africa there is no voice of its own.

There are many own voices and endless realities, but for us it is very important to see that it is the African filmmakers themselves who, with their own tools, are telling their stories.

Because in Colombia, and I would dare to say that in the West, we are used to seeing films

but not

”, he criticizes.

"The lens with which we have known the continent from here has always been that of the gaze of a white man."

Because in Colombia, and I would dare to say that in the West, we are used to seeing films about Africa, but not about Africa.

Salym Fayad, co-director of Muica and the Otro Sur Foundation

In a debate after the screening, Ángel Perea, a cultural researcher, delved into this concept and emphasized respect for local cinema and the search for their own language.

Whatever it is.

films

are allowed art for art's sake, ambiguity... But those on the continent are required to be political and, furthermore, to be understood by the general public," he criticized.

“This one in particular is a declaration of love for the seventh art and resistance through humor.

And it's wonderful."