Schwerpunkt 8 Focus Section

SCHWERPUNKT 8 FOCUS SECTION

Rhea Schmitt

group of foreign trained filmmakers active before the own narratives, for national and international regime came into power. Other filmmakers work for audiences, whatever the format. They do not international organizations producing educational see themselves and their cultures represented films, like Mia Bittar and Alyaa Siralkhatim, while some in international media or on state television. As filmmakers maintain their day jobs in completely dif- established filmmaker Mia Bittar pointed out, their ferent fields and choose to make their films with their approach of trial and error, despite governmental own money and free time, like Razan Hashim. Finally, I and infrastructural restrictions, inspired her and also worked with filmmakers who left to study abroad others to find solutions around restrictions for and returned, like Suhaib Gasmelbari, for example. their own ambitious productions.

After 10 years of totalitarian dictatorial regime, filmma- Curator Afifi described filmmaking in Sudan as © Rhea Schmitt king and media production outside of war propaganda a baby that just left the incubator doing its first “There are four obstacles to film and pho- had come to a halt. However, the dynamics began to steps on its own. Seeing the various high-quality tography in Sudan. The sun, the society, change due to a shift in technology and politics in the productions generated during Al Bashir’s regime the government and the government.” late 1990s and early 2000s. Satellite TV entered Sudan and over the last months - DURING AS WELL AS FROM Ali Mohamed Osman and enabled people to watch more than just state tele- WITHIN THE REVOLUTION - it is certain that filmmakers Professor of Photography at Sudan Uni- vision. Filmmaking technology became more affordable in Sudan will continue to build their film industry versity for Science and Technology and with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with with whatever means available. the South in 2005, Sudan moved into the focus of inter- Filmmaking in Sudan has a long but difficult history national interest and press. Combined, these events due to the continuous political and economic chal- triggered a modest but important opening of the media lenges. Despite that, there are critically acclaimed landscape. Filmmakers and media professionals, who films, some of which were recently restored by had left the country in the early 1990s, returned from the Arsenal Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V. abroad, established filmmakers started exploring poten- and screened at the Berlinale. Three recently tial new avenues of production, and foreign news produced films by Sudanese filmmakers are cur- producers and filmmakers entered Sudan. During the rently touring film festivals : the dramaI Will Die same period, the Sudanese Film Group resumed their at 20 by Amjad Abu Alala and the documentaries meetings to educate young filmmakers. They also began Khartoum Offside by Marwa Zain and Suhaib collaborating on films. In 2009, film curator Tilal Afifi © Rhea Schmitt Gasmelbari’s Talking about Trees, which tells founded the Sudan Film Factory, a collaborative project the story of four filmmakers trying to reopen a with the Goethe-Institut, which provided basic practical cinema in Sudan . film training to aspiring filmmakers. Nowadays, the Sudan Film Factory is an independent institution that In my Master’s thesis, I focused on the motiva- supports, educates and collaborates with filmmakers tions and aspirations that drive filmmakers and and created the firstSudanese Independent Film Festival media creators, the role of access to training, as (SIFF). This improved public access to films, which well as the impact of technological developments had been previously mainly limited to foreign cultural About the Author: and the changing political situation of filmma- centers. The SIFF and the festivals that followed shortly Rhea Schmitt completed king. As little research has been conducted on after created an additional motivation for filmmakers her MA in African History filmmaking between 2000 and 2015, Sudanese to produce films and enabled them to interact with at Humboldt-Universität filmmaker colleagues strongly suggested focusing international colleagues, learning from them and vice zu Berlin (2017) after on this period. I conducted 34 interviews with versa. In addition, more multi-media courses were working as a filmmaker different groups of film professionals, varying in introduced at various universities which brought forth in Sudan for three years. age, political and personal backgrounds, career some successful filmmakers. The arrival of the internet She collaborated with trajectories and production contexts. For instance not only provided access to a wider range of films Sudanese colleagues on filmmakers working within the system, like Ibrahim but also to informal film education, either through various productions and © Rhea Schmitt Saehoon, who use those means to create within official online courses or DIY YouTube channels . These is working with the Sudan the restrictive boundaries, as well as those fighting developments led to an increase in people working in Film Factory on the pub- the system and working independently like the the field of film productions. One of the main motiva- lication of her thesis in members of the Sudanese Film Group (SFG) - a tionsthat drive Sudanese filmmakers is to create their English and Arabic.