Resistance is the genesis of independence. Any act of defiance towards an oppressor requires freedom of thought, which is ultimately followed by freedom through deliberate collective action. Freedom becomes a strenuous process drawn out across time, rather than achieved in a momentous individual victory. A wheel that starts spinning from when the first protest begins.
Hind Meddeb’s Sudan, remember us emphatically captures this paradoxical co-existence of freedom amidst oppression. The film, which documents the 2019 sit-in protest for democracy in Sudan, celebrates the willpower of the nation’s diverse citizens in their efforts to peacefully engage with the oppressive leadership to further their demands.
Meddeb’s movie begins in the days following the ousting of President Omar al-Bashir, covering Sudan’s descent into a military rule while the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) vied for control. Several segments filmed at the sit-in amplify the reliance on creative expression as an outlet for people in their pursuit of democracy. Meddeb makes Sudanese protest poetry and music the focal point of the film, focusing on civil disobedience and non-violence. The terror succeeding these euphoric acts of creative expression is effectively documented through cell phone videos filmed by those under siege.
Virality and visibility underscore Meddeb’s humanitarian message, adding a subtle potency to her efforts to revert attention to the often-sidelined crisis in Sudan. The vertical format of the cell phone videos creates a necessary formal and emotional divergence from the film’s poetic rebellion to confront the violence that still mars Sudan today. The conflict on screen mirrors itself in the conflict between the 9:16 and the 16:9 video formats, further emphasizing the conflict brewing within the protestors who are caught between the choice to save themselves or stand firm and fight with the others.
“My rights mean nothing if they have none,” screams one of the protestors, referring to children who have been left orphaned, neglected, and starved amid the chaos of regime change.
There is honesty in Meddeb’s portrayal of the protests and of the aftermath following the Khartoum massacre, when the RSF brought a gruesome end to the sit-in, killing hundreds of people. Her directorial shrewdness is in no doubt advised by her illustrious career as a journalist and a long-time documentary filmmaker. In her previous film, Paris Stalingrad, Meddeb depicted the struggle of migrants from Africa and Afghanistan in the French capital’s ‘Stalingrad district,’ following a young man from Darfur who recites poetry to cope with his hardships.
“Sudan found me in Paris,” the director remarked while introducing her latest film at TIFF. However, while Paris Staligrad was prompt and robust in its critique of the French government, such an acute examination of Sudan’s sensitive socio-political tensions remained absent from Sudan, remember us.
The cinematography in Sudan, remember us, indicates further that this film is less a war movie and more a protest movie, as her camera is extremely sensitive towards the protestors when in rebellion. This sensitivity is best exemplified through a scene where a young man sheds a silent tear while painting a mural of those killed in the Khartoum massacre. The headlights of a parked sedan illuminate the scene as his paintbrush gently pecks the wall. His eyes are wet. The paint is wet.
Meddeb clearly understands the position she holds as a passive observer and grants the moment to whom it belongs to. While this choice makes for an exceptionally meditative document, it eventually loses its confidence as the film struggles to deepen its state of meditation. The film remains quite impactful until the emotional well runs dry, beyond which it has little commentary on Sudan’s past, present, or future.
Internal conflict mirrors the external and both find a release in expression, in a silent rebellion. Resistance remains an active reality for Sudanese people, even today. They grieve, paint, scream, and flee — all while they defiantly protest for democracy, all while they dream of freedom — from the past, in the present, and for the future.
“Time is a wheel that never stops,” said the Sudanese poet Mohamed Al-Hassan Hummaid, and as the concluding monologue in Meddeb’s film says, “Remember me when victory comes.” Until then, victory rests in resistance.
