Africa Is a Country

sudan

Sudan

5 Questions for a Filmmaker–Taghreed Elsanhouri

Taghreed Elsanhouri directed the first Sudanese film to be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, “All about Darfur,” in 2005. That same year the film also won the Chairperson’s Prize at the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF). Her other credits include ‘Sudanna al Habib’ (2012) and ‘Mother Unknown‘ (2009). This interview is the second […]

In Sudan, “freedom for my mum”

In Sudan, the numbers of women political prisoners are rising, largely because the numbers of women protesting the government and the state are rising. Last week, in response to both economic difficulties stemming from South Sudan’s independence (and loss of oil revenues) and World Bank ‘advice’, the government of Sudan ended gas subsidies. Good ‘economic’ sense? […]

5 New Films to Watch Out For, N°30

From the director and singer-actors of the 2005 film U-Carmen eKhayelitsha comes a new “opera” film. Unogumbe/Noye’s Fludde follows the plot of Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde work but moves the action from medieval England to present-day South Africa. Nomads is a musical documentary by Mohamad Hanafi, produced by the Goethe‐Institut’s Sudan Film Factory (also check […]

Philosophy and dancing outside the European tradition

A couple of weeks ago Hamid Dabashi’s article “Can Non-Europeans Think?” was making the usual hype motions on the web. The New York-based Iranian professor took righteous offense at Santiago Zambala’s list of the “important and active philosophers today,” which failed to name any thinker thinking outside Europe (except for Judith Butler [does New York count as Europe?]), […]

10 African films to watch out for, N°3

‘O Grande Kilapy’ (“The Great Kilapy” — ‘kilapy’ is Kimbundu for ‘scheme’, or ‘fraud’), the new film by director Zézé Gamboa, portrays the last decade of Portuguese rule in Angola through the story of Joao Fraga (played by Lazaro Ramos): The film’s facebook page has some clips. Also check this production video for the images […]

In Sudan, women set the spark

The women of Sudan have had enough. On the evening of June 16, 2012, women dormitory residents at the University of Khartoum said, Enough is Enough. Girifna. We are disgusted; we have had enough.

African Asylum Seekers in Israel

Guest Post by Anonymous* If you follow current headlines, you may have noticed a seemingly new conflict arising in the Middle East. Recent migratory trends in Israel have led to new challenges beyond the decades long occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The tension surrounding the influx of African asylum seekers and refugees to Israel has […]

The Two Sudans

On July 6 2011, the world’s diplomatic elite flocked to one of the globe’s most underdeveloped regions to bask in the warm glow of the birth of a new nation. That South Sudan’s struggle for independence had claimed the lives of an estimated 2million people, and that the majority of its inaugural citizens had been […]

The Sudan Report

Omar al-Bashir has a bigger problem than the ICC: Ordinary citizens, including the middle classes, taking to the streets against the effects of austerity on their lives.

A road accident doesn't make a revolution

Recent demonstrations in Sudan’s capital Khartoum over road conditions and traffic signals have led some observers in the West to speculate about the possibilities of a Egypt-style revolution there (see FT, BBC and Al Jazeera English, for example; Sudan-specific blogs, like Making Sense of Sudan, are silent on the protests). For our sake, I asked a […]

'First Time in Sudan Africa'

Another one of those videos I was forwarded over the break. It’s become something of a rite of passage for rappers to visit Africa. For example this video of Busta Rhymes refusing to let go of an elderly Senegalese woman on Goree Island in Senegal, briefly went viral late last year.  In the video above […]