This year’s Sudan Independent Film Festival, which is currently underway, will showcase five Egyptian feature films and two Egyptian short documentaries.
The opening film was Kawthar Younis’ 2015 documentary film A Present from the Past, which was screened on 21 January.
The film follows the young Egyptian director’s trip to Italy with her father, a professor, Mokhtar Younis, in search for his long-lost Italian lover, Patrizia.
Professor Younis is unknowingly filmed with hidden cameras throughout his journey: his quest, natural reactions and relationship with his daughter make up the footage. The film is set to screen again on 23 January.
Kamla Abouzekri’s A Day for Women will be screened on 24 January. The 2016 film takes place at a youth centre in a working class neighbourhood which allocates a day at the pool for women’s use only.
Viewers witness the social and psychological repercussions of the event on the women and their private lives. The film is Abouzekri’s return to the screen following a seven-year hiatus since her last film, Wahed Sefr (One-Zero).
Tamer El Said’s film In the Last Days of the City is set to screen on 24 and 25 January. The 2016 drama film follows El Said himself as he tries to create a documentary, but cannot decide how to do so. When other filmmakers come to visit from Beirut, Baghdad and Berlin, the artists discuss the impact of their cities on their creativity. The film is an elegy to the city of Cairo and a trip back to the final years of former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Mahmoud Soliman’s film We Have Ever Been Kids is set to screen on 25 January. The 2016 documentary follows the subjects of Soliman’s earlier documentary Living among Us (2003), and traces their daily lives in the context of the declining social, political and economic situation in the country. The film shows a woman’s attempt to raise and care for her four children after her divorce from their father.
Mohamed Diab’s controversial film Clash will be shown on 26 January. The 2016 film is entirely set inside a police van, following the events of June 2013. Inside the van are several prisoners, each one of whom represents a different aspect of Egyptian society.
The violence and clashes between Muslim Brotherhood opponents and supporters can be witnessed through the bars of the van, thus viewers are truly watching the events through the prisoners’ eyes.
Two short documentary films will also be screened between 24 and 26 January, Ahmed Nabil’s 2014 film 17 Fouad Street, and Mohamed Adel El Safty’s 2015 film My Father.
Launched in 2014 as the first ever film festival in Sudan, the Sudan Independent Film Festival is a week-long annual event of screenings, discussion forums and networking events organised by the Sudan Film Factory and focused on independent cinema.
This year’s edition, the fourth, runs from 21 to 27 January.
<
br>
