‘The Dogs Shitter’ Wins Sudan Independent Film Festival Prize| Sudanow Magazine

KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - The short film Hahay Alkilab has won the prize of the Sudan Independent Film Festival.

Hahay Alkilab (literally the dogs shitter), co-produced by film directors Saddam Siddiq and Yasir Fai’z, has won the Black Elephant prize of the Festival.

The film is taken from a novel by Sudanese Novelist Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin. It speaks about a Sudanese man (Dirweesh) who is married to a Dutch woman and lives with her in Europe. When the man’s daughter became 18, a lover comes on the scene. Here the conservative Dirweesh, the father, recalls his Sudanese traditions that do not tolerate a girl having an affair with a man outside wedlock. A long dialogue then goes on between Dirweesh and his wife on their daughter’s eighteenth birthday.

Film Director Eisa Mohamed Noor told Sudanow that “The film has won public appreciation and public appreciation always counts and is always the primary aim”.

Ten Sudanese films had contested in the Festival that was organized during the period January 21-27.

The organizers have awarded the Festival’s special award to the film ‘Journey to Kenya’, directed by Ibrahim Ahmed. The film tells the story of a journey on a small van by a group of athletes from Khartoum to Kenya across Ethiopia to join a sporting contest there.

Festival chairman Talal Afeefy said in a speech that “cinema in Sudan is an art for resistance, very old and always in the memory of people but was gravely undermined by economic and political conditions.”

“Today we find ourselves before new beginnings illuminated by filmmakers Sohaib Gasm Albari, Amjad Abulela, Marwa Zain and Hajjouj Kaka. These are strong beginnings that derive their willpower from mutiny, fury, expectations and a high artistic spirit,” he said.

“These great people have honored us with the global attention they have received,” he added.

Eighty long, short and documentary films from 25 countries were screened during the festival.

The films were played in nine theatres, including those of the German Goethe Institute, the British Council, the French Center, Bait Alturath (Heritage Home), the Coptic Club and Sudan Factory.

Filmmakers from within and from outside Sudan have attended the occasion. Culture and Information Minister and his Ministry’s Undersecretary Raheed Saeed had attended the closing session, Monday.

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