Seeing the World Through Sudan

Seeing the World Through Sudanselected by Aflam-Sudan (Ibrahim Ahmed and Ahmad Mahmoud Aflam-Sudan),with support from Luvuyo Equiano Nyawose, Bayan Abubakr and Jordan MulkeyThis film program features short films by Sudanese filmmakers, and runs from October 11 – 31. The film program features short films by Sudanese filmmakers, and runs from October 11 – 31, and is an extension of “Seeing the World through Sudan,” a two-day conference on October 11 & 12, 2024 will focus on the history of violence shaping the ongoing war (and the genocides that it has perpetuated) in Sudan. Centering the voice and vantage points of Sudanese scholars, activists, and artists, this conference seeks to collaboratively identify the necessary steps already taken and critically develop the ones yet needed to build a Sudan that can avow the vexed inheritances of the past, atone the failures of its post/colonial present, and forge the path toward a more revolutionary future.Co-sponsored by the Brown Arts Institute, Watson Africa Initiative, Sudan Human Rights Hub, Aflam-Sudan and Magic Lantern Cinema and the Department of Modern Culture and Media and the Malcolm S. Forbes Center for Culture and Media StudiesFILM PROGRAMLevel 2 – Haneen Mohamed, Revolution Fever Dreams (2019), 4:38 minsRevolution Fever Dreams (2019) is a both a deconstruction and exploration of Sudanese national identity through the lens of collective memory, sentiment, and key political junctures and discourses in Sudanese history. Created amid the elation of the December Revolution, the piece explores a moment where the idea of nationhood is contested – as revolutionaries strive to forge a ‘New Sudan’, away from the postcolonial paradigms and oppressive structures that have colored their world with grief, loss & precarity.Using archival footage and sound from both Sudan and South Sudan TV, Revolution Fever Dreams draws from different conceptions of ‘nation’ as articulated by resistance movements in Darfur, South Sudan, Khartoum, and the diaspora. As the December Revolution propels Sudan into a moment of futurity and possibility, the piece embodies the collective reckoning Sudanese embark with their political past, as well as their hopes, sentiments, and yearnings for an unclear future.Level 3S – Hashim Hassan, A Handful of Dates, (2019), 11:23 mins.In a mythical village between the desert and the Nile, a young boy discovers the painful truth behind his grandfather’s fortune.Level 3N –Ahmed Khalil, Mara (2019), 6:08 mins. Twenty year old Sara, pressured by her family, must choose whether to accept an arranged marriage as her only path to independence.Level 4S – Mohamed Babiker, Atbara 90 (2023), 8:29 mins.A year after the 1989 coup, Aster wrestles with the weight of her husband’s choice to emigrate, torn between her steadfast roots and his quest for a more certain future.Level 4N – Ahmed Babiker, Sayga Wa9la (2022), 20:37 mins.Fate brings together four individuals with different and conflicting beliefs in one vehicle heading to Madani.