13/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: Four members of the directorial team break down their mixed techniques and how the circumstances on the ground transformed their work

Clockwise from top left: Phil Cox, Rawia Alhag, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed and Ibrahim "Snoopy" Ahmad

Since Sudan’s civil war broke out in April 2023, 12 million people have been displaced from their homes, either internally or to other countries. At the 75th Berlinale, in the Panorama section, a new film about life in the country’s capital gets its European premiere after its world premiere at Sundance. It was informed in real time by evacuations, leading the film to adopt an unusual approach: Khartoum [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmad, Tim…
film profile] blends more conventional documentary footage with green-screen reenactments of stories, dreams and recollections from its subjects – Lokain and Wilson, Jawad, Majdi and Khadmallah.

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Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmad, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, Rawia Alhag, Phil Cox and Anas Saeed share directing credits for the film. Cineuropa sat down with four of them to ask about their mixed techniques and how the circumstances on the ground transformed the work.

Cineuropa: The film is titled Khartoum. What kind of role do you see the city itself playing?
Phil Cox: We've always seen Khartoum as one of the great metropolises of Africa, but it's also a mental space that represents a clash of diverse backgrounds. All of Sudan is in that city – every ethnicity, background and generation. It represents this collective melting pot shown through moments of beauty, culture, dance, song and positivity alongside dictatorship, repression and a mentality which is also a generational clash. It’s a geographical space, but it’s also a mental metaphor.

Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmad: At one point, we were describing the film as a mother who had different kids, and these kids are trying to live in harmony despite all these different social layers of each participant. It’s like trying to harmonise a Khartoum that has all of these ethnicities and people from different backgrounds.

How did you decide upon this method of green-screen reenactment once it became impossible to film on the ground?
PC: The film was born of circumstance. It began as a creative poem in Khartoum. When the war happened, the production [people] spent all the money on helping the directors and the participants flee to Kenya. It was a group of filmmakers sharing a space and mattresses, determined to continue the film as a sign of resistance and a way of stating opposition to the war and showing positivity in the civilian population.

Rawia Alhag: Once we arrived in Kenya, we had a conversation so they could describe their journey. We went on to do a couple of tests, staging what they went through in Sudan. That was way before the green screen because we were living together. We were also showing them how we tell our own stories, and then they could do it their own way. That’s when our relationship also became stronger because we were sharing all of these intimate stories that we went through in Sudan. It was a healing process for all of us.

Can you tell us more about the close-up visual approach to the footage on the ground?
PC: I was in Khartoum during the coup, and then I discovered this space, Sudan Film Factory, where a lot of the filmmakers are. There was some exceptional talent, ideas and thoughts, but there was no equipment or resources. I approached Apple, and they donated a series of iPhones – so everything you see was shot on an iPhone 14 Pro. Firstly, it was good for safety because it was very dangerous on the streets, and secondly, every filmmaker had to be very close, very intimate.

ISA: Given the circumstances in Sudan and the budget, we turned that around in our own favour. I really love the fact that we only had iPhones to shoot on because it allowed us to be more intimate with our subjects and more invisible in certain spaces like the markets and crowded places, because people don’t tend to take iPhones that seriously, even though we were shooting something serious.

The film has an underlying sense of hope around the collective solidarity of a new generation.
Timeea Mohamed Ahmed: Everyone on this team felt liable. This is the chance for us to put a face to the narrative of the Sudan people for an international audience. We have been fed US cinema all of our lives; we know US culture without even being from the USA. Now, we hope that people will know Sudan and [the cities of] Omdurman and Khartoum – how we dance, how we ride bikes, how we protest, how we fight, how we live and how we love. I would love the whole world to know about us and to imitate us.

RA: I hope to help raise awareness about the kids, especially the kids [Lokain and Wilson] that I adopted, to help improve their lives. My life has changed as well now that we’ve relocated to Kenya. I strongly believe that films change people’s lives, and I hope that it changes the lives of Sudanese people as well.

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Check out our exclusive trailer for Khartoum below: