Sudan's Cinema Lovers Dream of Better Days

SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 2015 Sudanese children sit in one of the rooms of the Halfaya A Sudanese man prepares a film for projection at The Palace Sudanese film enthusiast Ali Al-Nur prepares a film for pro- Cinema, which is now closed, in the Sudanese capital, of Youth and Children in the Omdurman district, one of just jection at The Palace of Youth and Children. Khartoum. — AFP photos three functioning cinemas left in Khartoum. Sudan’s cinema lovers dream of better days tanding in his dimly lit projection room, Ali al-Nur longs for Bashir took a dim view of cinema. “They did not outright say cine- the days when Sudanese filmgoers filled the rows of plush ma was haram (religiously forbidden) or banned, but they took Sred seats below, enthralled by American blockbusters, steps to decrease screenings,” Ibrahim said, including closing the Egyptian comedies and Bollywood extravaganzas. The Palace of state cinema institution, a final blow for many cinemas. One of the Sudanese watch a film at The Palace of Youth and Children. Youth and Children where Nur, 55, works is one of just three func- open-air cinemas, the Halfaya, limped on until 2005. Built in 1955, tioning cinemas left in a city of 4.6 million people. Today few visit its peeling green facade looms over a quiet street. The only people the squat, concrete hall, its outside plastered with sun-faded using its 15-foot screen are the children of its caretaker, who use it posters for the years-old Indian action films it screens. as a goal as they play football. Although Khartoum’s upmarket Afra mall has a screen, the They live in what was once the ticket office, with smouldering Palace is a rare survivor of the heyday of the capital’s cinemas. Indian film stars looking down from tattered posters. Above the Many stand empty after closing their doors because of the eco- lobby, the cinema’s 60-year-old projectors are still intact, covered in nomic hardship and government policies that followed the 1989 droppings from the pigeons that have made the room their home. Islamist-backed coup that brought President Omar al-Bashir to Abdallah Halfaya, the cinema’s director when it closed, started power. working there in 1970. “It was a very, very good time,” he says. A Nur started working in the cinemas as a teenager in his home- black-and-white portrait still hanging in the cinema’s office shows town of El Obeid, before studying film engineering in Cairo and Halfaya in the 1970s, wearing a floral shirt and smiling out from arriving in Khartoum in 1983, where he worked in three other cine- under a frizzy mass of hair. “At the moment, the cinemas are shut, mas. At the time Khartoum had some 15 cinemas, all packed on for many reasons,” he says, adding he is optimistic they can reopen weekends. “In the past, people used to call to reserve tickets and in and has heard the governor of Khartoum met key figures from the the week there was a program with English-language films on film industry, although he admits it’s a distant hope. Sunday, Arabic on Tuesday,” Nur says amid the whirr of his projec- Sudanese men look at posters advertising films at the Palace tion room. Today the Palace fills just a handful of seats and many of ‘In love with film’ of Youth and Children. its customers are young couples seeking somewhere private to talk With more than 60 percent of Sudan’s population under the age rather than the delights of the silver screen. “Cinema’s in a bad of 24, many young people have no memory of their country’s love state now. There’s no cinema really,” Nur sighs. for cinema. Talal Al-Afifi hopes to change that. He runs the Sudan Film Factory based out of an airy house in the upscale Khartoum 2 Economic woes neighborhood, and he and his team give training and equipment The Sudanese economy suffered badly after 1989, particularly to prospective filmmakers. when the United States imposed a trade embargo in 1997 over They also started the Sudan Independent Film Festival, and are allegations that included rights abuses, and cinemas struggled to already planning to hold its third edition soon. Afifi, now in his 30s, afford foreign releases, prompting many to buy cheaper Indian grew up in Khartoum’s Kobar area, opposite the Al-Wihda open-air films. The capital’s open-air movie theatres-auditoriums with hun- cinema. It “spread voices, songs and light to the whole neighbor- dreds of seats laid out in front of huge screens-were worst hit. hood,” he remembers. “Since those days, I can say, I was in love Fearful of demonstrations, Bashir’s regime imposed a curfew with films”. And although the SFF has focused on helping young around the capital for several months. “All the screenings were in directors and producers hone their talents in making film, he is also the evening, so they stopped,” says Suleiman Ibrahim, a senior aiming to have Sudanese films screened in the capital’s movie the- member of the Sudan Film Group. atres again. — AFP Sudanese men walk past the Palace of Youth and Children. He helped set up the association to promote cinema in Sudan in April 1989, but the hardline Islamists who came to power with Sudanese children walking in front of the 15-foot screen of the Halfaya Cinema. A disused antique movie projector and empty films at the Halfaya Cinema, which is now closed..

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