“Khartoum” Shows the Vast Tragedy of War in Sudan on an Intimate Scale

By Jordan Crucchiola 

On January 27 at The Egyptian Theater, the audience is invited to witness the impact of war in Sudan at an individual level through the triumphant documentary Khartoum. Four filmmakers, all displaced by the conflict, focus their project on civilians’ stories to show the impact of violence in the country by underscoring the beauty of their subjects’ lives before the unrest began.

Director Phil Cox was in Khartoum in 2021 making his own film when the coup began. The stage for this conflict was set when former military officer and strongman, the Sudanese head of state Omar al-Bashir, was finally deposed in a prior coup after ruling over the country for two decades until 2019. It catalyzed an era of opportunity in Sudan for a civilian-led government to finally guide the country, but that opportunity was shattered when a conflict broke out between two government military factions. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allies, entered a violent clash that has since killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly 10 million Sudanese.

Just before the civil war began, Cox had come upon a space called Sudan Film Factory, where he found “a lot of energetic young talent and Sudanese filmmakers with vision and ambition, but they had no cameras and they had no tech.” Together with Khartoum producer Talal Afifi, Cox decided to create a workshop with the mission of compiling “a cinematic poem of Khartoum led by emerging new talented filmmakers in Sudan.” The project had been going for six months, and directors were shooting their visual poems on iPhones, when war broke out. 

“Everybody had to flee for their lives and the production used all the money to get them out and save the lives of the participants, the directors,” explains Cox to the post-premiere audience at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. “We got to Kenya with nothing and we all sat together to think, how could we start again? And they decided that this film would be the most important thing they could do as resistance to war and to make a statement.”

Director Timeea Mohamed Ahmed had chosen his subject, Jawad, because to him, Jawad so fully represented the city’s many layers. He was part of the revolution before and after the coup, serving as a motorbike volunteer getting people around Khartoum. “He’s real. He’s honest. He looks like me,” says Ahmed. “And he is Khartoum.”

Filmmaker Rawia Alhag spent about three months looking for her subjects before meeting a pair of little boys, Wilson and Lokain, who were best friends and spent their days collecting empty bottles and refuse for sale. The pair had families that Alhag required consent from to film, but the two boys seemed to live largely among the streets of Khartoum, relying almost entirely on each other and roaming around the city in search of lions the adults couldn’t see.Director Anas Saeed focused on a mother named Khadmalla who used to run a tea stall in Khartoum, and now does so in Nairobi. And Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad chose as his subject a former civil servant in Khartoum named Majdi, who is currently living in Sudan while his wife and sons are in exile in Cairo, Egypt.

With all the filmmakers and participants forced to leave Sudan, and with filming becoming too dangerous as they exited the country, the directors linked their disparate subjects together by having them act out each other’s recollections in front of a green screen. This recreates both specific places in the participants’ lives — their old homes in Khartoum, the streets where they worked and were eventually terrorized by the RSF — as well as dreamlike backdrops showing the viewers where the subjects go in their imaginations as they long for home. 

But because the documentary began filming before the coup, it also gives a glimpse of the lives people had lived, in a place they still love but cannot return to. “The film was not easy. It was full of obstacles,” says Saeed. “We maintained our resilience so we can convey to everybody our story. Sudan is going through a difficult time right now, and through this documentary we wanted to convey the voice of Sudan.”

Even though the circumstances of making Khartoum changed, the film, which is premiering in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, succeeds mightily in its initial purpose to create a “cinematic poem” to Sudan’s capital city. It also ended up creating a community in grief. “It was a family who made the film, a world cinema family. So we’re honored to be here,” says Cox. Ahmad adds, “This was an amazing journey, and it became more amazing with you people seeing the film and appreciating our effort. Thank you to everyone here in Sundance working hard to put this up. We just want you guys to always talk about Sudan by any means, and you can always help [with] ending war. You never know what you can do to help and reach someone over there and stop what’s happening. We miss home.”