Final Rating: 2.5/5
In April 2023, Sudan went through the ignition of its Civil War. The armed forces, alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), took down the dictator Omar Al-Bashir through a coup d’etat back in 2019. However, the two groups diverged and started a conflict, which would leave more than ten million Sudanese without a home.
The collective of directors Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, and Phil Cox started to shoot a film in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan. They would film five subjects: Lakaim and Wilson (bottle collectors), Jawad (resistance committee volunteer), Khadimallah (tea stall owner), and Majdi (civil servant). All involved in the project, Khartoum, needed to flee Sudan to escape the conflict.
Therefore, in a different country and far from the titular place, the directors use a green screen and animation to re-enact memories of home. In modern documentaries, filmmaking tools try to differentiate the medium from journalistic work. The usual archival and voice-over combo evolved to varied formats and styles to represent a factual event. Lately, animation has become a viable option for expanding documentary ideas and filling the gaps when there is no material on the occurrence.
The directors of Khartoum are aware of the possibilities of animation to recreate what they physically cannot. In this sense, the film uses its limitations to complement the film’s cinematic language. Yet, it also borrows from re-enactments, a technique present in the film considered the first relevant documentary ever: Nanook of the North.
The combination of past events and animation aims to portray the pains of leaving home. Each subject gets a chance to share why Khartoum is memorable to them. In those moments, the film presents its fascinating and compelling moments. Lakaim and Wilson remember their joy in being best friends in the hardships of life. It is a beautiful friendship and companionship of two young men who still salute the good moments of their homeland.
They even demand that filmmakers show the audience their drawings about the war. It is a bittersweet point for children growing up in times of conflict. Another fascinating element is Khadimallah’s moment with her daughter while they cuddle under the animated skies. Those scenes encounter beauty and humanity in the trauma and despair.
Nonetheless, the film still drags on the ground, even with a brief duration. Hence, the recreation of the events is not equally engaging for the different subjects. Jawad and Majdi do not have to engage and develop their personas. The civil servant has a gambling segment from the archival footage that does not translate to an emotional high.
Meanwhile, Jawad recreates a love that does not correspond and loses the audience’s fascination. Accordingly, the film does not balance the acting of former events with the raw reality of the war and dealing with the militias. The emotional peaks rely on their memories to create a connection with those people. They are away from their home and cannot return there.
The militias traumatized Khadimallah with their violent approach to the locals. She talks about when the RSF murdered a deaf person because they did not respond to their questions. There is a problem with the curation of the occurrences and how they are displayed in the film.
The mix of documentary formats to fill the gaps evokes the creativity of the directors in Khartoum. However, not all recreations work coherently to assemble a unity. It ends up as a kaleidoscope of memories regarding Sudan, with an uneven storytelling impact, and how they get disposed of in the film. Thus, it is a mixed experiment between animation, recreation, and footage that fails to land all of its segments but represents a misrepresented world event.
Khartoum was seen during the 2025 Hot Docs film festival.
