Sometimes the lowest budgets and the most ad-hoc production arrangements can lead to some of the best results in documentary film. This is the case with Khartoum, made by four young Sudanese film makers, which begins by following five characters simply navigating the cut-and-thrust of street survival in their beloved but war-torn city. Two young boys Lokain and Wilson collecting trash for sale, a woman peddling tea on the streets – a neighbourhood with no ‘posh’ people, as one of the boys puts it.
The scenes of daily life are swiftly overtaken by the Sudanese revolution, with graphic images of clashes between demonstrators and military taken by cell phone. Eventually the brutal civil war between the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces makes filming – and indeed life itself – impossible, and both the characters and filmmakers flee Sudan. The result is a heart-warming, and equally heart-wrenching, portrayal of a great city’s resistance to elite manipulation and military thuggery.
