KHARTOUM***** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Preview

Khartoum is an evocative name but the capital city of Sudan has been ravaged by its latest military coup.  Apparently, Sudan is a country that has experienced the most military coups of any country in Africa.  In this superb documentary from a group of directors led by Phil Cox, we learn what it has been like for five of the ten million ordinary people displaced by the most recent political violence.

The first and most heartbreakingly brilliantly joyous of the two refugees are orphaned boys Lokain and Wilson.  They are still young but matter of factly describe what it's like to be surrounded by militia with guns. The juxtaposition of this horrific childhood with their more typical boisterous cheekiness is striking and affecting.  We see them now as kids in a Kenyan school, planning how to bunk off if the teacher is boring. But the director of their segment also puts them against a green screen with the other participants in the documentary, where they re-enact the painful events that caused them to flee, but also to imagine their most glorious dreams. It's a powerful technique - both whimsical and perilous - and speaks to the incredible trust the subjects must have had in their directors. 

Next we have mother Khadmallah who has had to flee with her daughter, also to Kenya, but misses lying beneath the trees in her beloved Nubian mountains. Then we have Jawad, who runs food stalls in Cairo with his fellow refugees and fondly remembers listening to music on a bus with a girl who he liked.  Finally we have civil servant and pigeon racer Majdi, who must let his son flee before he too can later leave. 

All of these stories are moving insofar as their memories and desires are so basic and simple: a memory of listening to music or lying beneath a tree. All are melancholy for home. All are hopeful for the future. I loved seeing the gorgeous buddies Lokain and Wilson wonder if their kids will be friends. Of course! They are so full of life it really is a fantastic testament to the strength and resilience of the human spirit that they are.  

But under the surface what hope is there? The documentary subjects are other Sudanese people interviewed comment on how fractured and fractious the country is. What even is Sudan but a patchwork of ancient kingdoms. Is their cultural identity African or Arab?  I think this film will prove an educational primer for the European viewer unfamiliar with that history.  And perhaps a provocation for viewers who think of slavery through a European lens. It's really quite shocking and provocative to hear Arab militia tell African residents of Khartoum that they are merely descendants of slaves, and that this is Arab country. 

KHARTOUM has a running time of 78 minutes. It played Berlin and Sundance. It will play the BFI London Film Festival 2025.