Franco-Tunisian-Moroccan film-maker Hind Meddeb is based in Paris but it was her on-the-spot experience in Khartoum in 2019 of the Sudanese uprising against the reactionary 30-year rule of president Omar al-Bashir which has led to this intensely engaged and sympathetic documentary study. The film immerses itself in the world of the protesters – particularly the young and female protesters – a whole generation energised and brought together by the insurgent movement; their passion was complicated and intensified by the fact that the revolution, at least at first, only brought in a “Transitional Military Council” or TMC, which did not seem in any great hurry to transition to democratic civilian rule. In fact, it carried outa grotesque massacre against people at a sit-in in June 2019, resulting in 127 people dead and 70 cases of rape.
Meddeb finds among the protesters a vivid, vibrant artistic movement: an oral culture of music, poetry and rap which flourishes on the streets. There is also a kind of subversive, surrealist energy: the camera finds a mock traffic roadworks sign reading: “Sorry for the Delay – Uprooting a Regime”. The most amazing performances from both women and men are witnessed, as well as a kind ofsoixante-huitardculture of slogans and maxims; young women hold up signs and prose-poems.
Above all, the protesters are suspicious of theocracy and the prevalence of a clerical class who have a great love of bullying the populace; one woman remembers a preacher who insisted on the virtues of poverty for everyone else while owning a sleek four-wheel drive. “The people demand justice for the dead!” declaims one banner; this is a movement which is passionately aware of its fallen comrades, betrayed by those who were ushered into power by their sacrifice and courage.
Sudan, Remember Us is in UK cinemas from 27 June.