“Maha and Shajane, I’m thinking of you trapped in Khartoum between the army bombing and the Rapid Support Forces militia who terrorize and murder. Here in France, there’s not much talk about the war in Sudan,” writes Hind Meddeb.
Not only not in France, but not really anywhere. Why?
The potentially rich country of Sudan is directly south of Egypt, with a border on the Red Sea. The White and Blue Nile Rivers join at its stricken capital, Khartoum, and form the great Nile River that flows upward through Cairo to the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandria. The country is awash in minerals, including natural gas, petroleum, uranium, and gold. But continual upheaval and mismanagement have plagued its history and crippled its development.
A new kind of war documentarian
Hind Meddeb, the writer and director, has created a refreshingly brilliant way to report on the state of affairs in Sudan. In 2019, she left her home in France to record events in Khartoum using letter writing and a focus on the arts. “Sudan, Remember Us” ended up being risky filmmaking and deservedly won the prestigious “Tim Hetherington Award” for her work in a war zone.
What makes Meddeb’s work so different from other war reporting is that she focuses on the poetry, writing, art, and music going on during the time of conflict. She captures rioters yelling out poems in the middle of the streets. She captures young revolutionaries singing and she shows artists painstakingly painting portraits of victims on a long wall.
In essence, Meddeb, while documenting the sequence of the war and the general reasons for it, more explicitly records the emotional reaction and expression it all inspires.
The Predicament in Sudan
When Meddeb went to Sudan the first time in 2019, the citizens were exhilarated after overthrowing the dictator who imposed Shar’ia law. Under al-Bashir, corporal punishment was de rigor: stoning, flogging, and crucifixion. There was a mass Christian flogging in 2001 and women were whipped for supposed public indecency. I don’t remember hearing about this on CNN.
The revolutionaries demanded a citizen-run country. They called it a Citizen’s Government. But soon, after an interim government was set up by the military, a heartbreaking betrayal occurred. On June 3, 2019, while young people were staging a sit-in to demand the transition government meet their expectations, the military came in and used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse them as they were sitting for their Ramadan iftar.
“If you give up the struggle, you lose your humanity.”
“We want free access to education, medical care, and transportation.
We don’t want to export anything, we need our production.
We want to establish a citizens’ government.”
Meddeb uses letter writing to drive the film’s narrative about what is happening.
Hi Hind. What happened is that General al-Burhan staged a military coup. He dissolved the unions, the ministries, the Forces of Freedom and Change … Even Hamdok, the PM, is under house arrest.
All civilian ministers have been arrested. So, the people are displaying civil disobedience.
Streets barricaded. Yesterday, eight people killed and 120 injured.
Now, why is all of this news to me? Google AI says US news outlets are not reporting about the ongoing chaos and war because there are significant safety challenges for reporters in Sudan. Also, obviously, we’ve got other dramatic conflicts on our burners that we’re not only distracted by but paying for.
Rating: 10/10
Credits
Writer-Director: Hind Meddeb
Producers: Abel Nahmias, Michel Zana, Alice Ormières, Taoufik Guiga
Genre: Documentary
Language: Arabic, English
Distributor: Watermelon Pictures
Run Time: 86 minutes
Cast: Shajane Suliman, Ahmed Muzamil, Maha Elfaki, and Khatab Ahmed
Release Date: Aug. 8, 2025
Website and how to see: https://www.watermelonpictures.com/films/sudan-remember-us
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