Sundance 2025: Poster and First Clips for World Cinema Documentary Contender “Khartoum”
The documentary, created by a collective of filmmakers, centers on five people who reenact their stories of survival after fleeing Sudan’s capital following the outbreak of war.
After a war broke out in Sudan following a military coup that displaced over 10 million people, five citizens of Khartoum—a civil servant, a tea stall owner, a resistance committee volunteer, and two young bottle collectors—intertwine their search for freedom through animated dreams, street revolutions, and civil war.
Sudanese filmmakers Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmad, and Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, along with British director Phil Cox, will present the documentary Khartoum in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it will premiere from January 23 to February 2. The film will then have its European premiere in the Panorama Dokumente section of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.
The project, which originally began as a small documentary workshop proposed by British documentary filmmaker and journalist Phil Cox—who has worked in Sudan since 2004—in collaboration with the Sudan Film Factory and the Ayin Network, was halted when war broke out in April 2023, as warplanes bombed the capital from above and armed men roamed the streets. Filmed on iPhones by four emerging Sudanese directors—Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim “Snoopy,” and Timeea Ahmed—the production regrouped in Kenya after receiving refuge and support from DOCUBOX.
“We want to represent the reality of our fellow Sudanese in this moment of war and division in an authentic way… Due to the dangers of carrying professional cameras on our own streets, we began shooting our film on iPhones, which meant we had to be close, to be intimate, and we want the audience to feel this,” the Sudanese directors explain. “Khartoum, a film collaboration with Talal, Anas, Rawia, Snoopy, and Timeea, is, I believe, an extraordinary love poem to a city and its people,” Phil Cox adds.
Khartoum was produced by Giovanna Stopponi for Native Voice Films UK and Talal Afifi for Sudan Film Factory, and co-produced by Trevor Snapp for Gisa Productions and Frank W. Albers for Light Echo Pictures Germany.
We can share the poster and first clips for Khartoum ahead of its world premiere at Sundance this month, all courtesy of the Sundance Institute:
The Film Fest Report team is an accredited media at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Expect substantial coverage from Park City, Utah, as the festival unfolds from January 23 to February 2, 2025.
