Showing of the film 'Khartoum', 14 February 2026 - with review

Join us in person to watch this award-winning film, followed by a discussion. Money raised above costs will be donated to HAS. 

The showing will take place at the Lucas Lecture Theatre at King's College London on Saturday 14 February at 4pm. Please arrive on time.

Khartoum: five lives, one city, a nation at war

Native Voice Films & Sudan Film Factory with BBC Storyville, GISA Productions, Ayin Network, XTR

A civil servant, a tea lady, a resistance committee volunteer and two street boys. Five stories from Sudan weave together in search of freedom through animated dreams, street revolutions and a war from the metropolis of Khartoum to escape in East Africa.

A film by Anas Saeed Rawia Alhag Ibrahim Snoopy Timeea M. Ahmed with Yousef Jubeh & Phil Cox.

In 2022, four Sudanese filmmakers and a British writer-director began filming the everyday lives and dreams of five very different residents of Khartoum. Street boys Lokain and Wilson scour a garbage dump so they can buy two beautiful shirts; tea seller and single mother Khadmallah diligently studies maths so she can start her own business; Resistance Committee volunteer Jawad protests against the military regime; civil servant Majdi escapes office life by racing pigeons with his son. When filming begins, they are all living under a military regime that had recently overthrown the civilian government in Sudan. A short time later, the regime splits and a war begins between the military and the Rapid Support Forces militias that displaces more than ten million people. The filmmakers and their protagonists, too, are forced to flee to East Africa. Using animation, green screen reconstructions and dream sequences, they find alternative ways to tell their stories. The result is an emotional, lyrical portrait of five people from Khartoum at a key moment in African history.

Where : Lucas Lecture Theatre, Strand Building, King's College London WC2R 2LS 

When : Saturday 14 February at 4pm

Price : Tickets are £10 and are available on Eventbrite

SSSUK would like to thank Almas Art Foundation and King's College London and its volunteers for their help supporting this event. The showing is a part of Almas Art Foundation’s Voices and Visions of Sudan film programme.

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Review

SSSUK was proud to host a showing of the film 'Khartoum' at King's College London on Saturday 14 February. SSSUK would like to thank Almas Art Foundation and King's College London and its volunteers for their help supporting this event. The showing was a part of Almas Art Foundation’s BFI and National Lottery-supported Voices and Visions of Sudan film programme. There's a short survey the British Film Institute would like people who attended to complete so they can extend these kinds of programming.

The film and a short video piece by co-Director Ibrahim Snoopy were followed by a general discussion, led by Chairperson Aziz Magid. Guest speakers also said a few words - Marilyn Deegan, about the Sudan Memory project, and Giel Malual, about his and John Kuei's Long walk of freedom for Sudan, funding education for refugees fleeing the war. 

Comments after the film included: "I thought it was brilliant in its apparent simplicity ... the way it depicted the heartfelt truths of the people in it ... I was absolutely blown away by the effects. Uncomplicated but so deeply affecting and powerful. Amazing!"; "I especially valued that the film presented real facts about the war in Sudan".

Costs having been deducted, £1,245.92 was raised from ticket sales and donations through Eventbrite. This has been donated to Humanitarian Action for Sudan. Such a sum will fund around 1,500 food baskets (lentils, sugar, oil) which HAS help provide in multiple places across the country, including Darfur, Kordofan or East Sudan. You can read HAS' information on its activities here. Congratulations to all who purchased a ticket and made a donation! 

More events are being planned by the SSSUK Committee and members and we'll be in touch with more details soon.

SSSUK members visit the British Museum

On Wednesday 19 February 2025, thirteen members of the Society were treated to a tour of the British Museum’s Sudanese collections by Dr Zoe Cormack, Curator (Africa), and Dr Loretta Kilroe, Project Curator (Sudan and Nubia). Our two knowledgeable and gracious hosts brought members to library and collections rooms where they were able to examine Nubian, South Sudanese and Darfurian materials that are not on public display.

A stunning example of what they showed us was a Kerma beaker made of smoke-fired clay around 1500 BC and excavated near Dongola.

Kerma ware pottery jar, black-topped with everted rim, 1750BC-1450BC (Classic Kerma period) (EA55426) © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Another exquisite item was made by the Azande at some time before 1867: a leaf-shaped, delicately incised woman's iron and copper knife, intended to be worn on the arm.

Woman's knife worn on arm, currency (?) made of iron, copper, 1867 (or earlier) (Af.4460) © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Some of the most interesting materials were not necessarily the most beautiful or interesting to look at; only when one knows their purpose and backstory can one appreciate their significance. For example, Zoe showed the group what she called one of her own favourite objects from South Sudan: a divination stone or rainmaking pebble, made by the Bari people some time before 1905.

Other humble, everyday objects included a clay coffeepot or jubbana from northern Sudan, dating from the mid-nineteenth century — one of many such coffeepots in the British Museum’s collections.

Coffee pot with handle; made of red earthenware. Incised decorations around the neck, 1867 (or earlier) (Af.4432) © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Loretta explained the significance of a striking Meroitic pot, from the kingdom of Kush (c.570 BC–AD550), which has a pattern of giraffes incised in the clay. She recently published an article about such giraffe motifs in the Journal of African Archaeology. Since giraffe imagery does not seem to have been prevalent in the “high” or elite culture of ancient Egypt and Nubia, she suggests that this pot and others like it may have reflected a popular religious culture that prevailed among Kushite women especially.

Black burnished jar from Faras with impressed giraffe decoration, c.570 BC–AD 550 (Meroitic) (EA51502) © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Also displayed was a woollen loin-cloth dating from between 600 and 850 CE and excavated from a burial at Kulubnarti, an island in the Nile about 100 miles south of the Egyptian border. In that period, the Nubian community at Kulubnarti was part of the Christian kingdom of Makuria.

Woven loin-cloth made of natural undyed wool, light tan in colour, excavated at Kulubnarti, Sudan, 600 × 950 CE (Early Christian Period). Originally, this was a fine garment with very even spinning and weaving. (EA77321) © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Several visitors later spoke about how inspiring the day was: “Brilliant! I came away energized and bursting with ideas;” “very interesting and useful”. We send our deep thanks to Loretta and to Zoe for giving so much of their time and expertise during the visit.

We hope to be arranging more such visits to Sudanese collections for members so please keep an ear out for any new updates.

'The Evolution of Modern Medicine in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan 1924-1956', by Dr Tarik Elhadd

A full recording of the event at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where Dr Tarik Elhadd's book was launched, on 9 December 2023.

Dr Elhadd’s book is about the evolution of modern medical practices in the Sudan including curative medicine, public health, medical research, and education. It covers an important era from 1924, when the first medical school in the country was inaugurated, up until the Independence of Sudan in 1956. The Sudan, known during this period as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was not officially a British colony. The British came during zenith of the 'Great Scramble for Africa' and Kitchener's appeal for the Gordon Memorial College set the platform for modern education in the Sudan, and following his demise, his call to establish a medical school in the country was heeded. The medical school inaugurated in 1924 became the third of its kind in Africa, which helped the mesh of expanding the service to remote parts of the country. The author and translator of more than seven books on the history of Sudanese medicine walks us through a comprehensive and authoritative description of the formative years of the Kitchener School of Medicine, events, dates, progress, and role in the foundation of almost all healthcare institutions. In addition, the book analyses the evolution of Sudan's medical services, teaching, training, and research. - Professor Ahmed El Safi, Sudan Medical Heritage Foundation

From Christian missionaries working within the colonial project of civilizing the natives, to the training of doctors, nurses and midwives who came after them, the author, a medical doctor himself, offers a coherent narrative supported by detailed historical events, and punctuated by gripping life histories of both pioneer European and Sudanese doctors.

'River Spirit', by Leila Aboulela. Book launch, with Lutz Oette and Fergus Nicoll

Monday, 5.00-6.30 on 6 March 2023 at DLT, Main Building, SOAS. Free admission.

Leila Aboulela, hailed as “a versatile prose stylist” (New York Times) has also been praised by J.M. Coetzee, Ali Smith, and Ben Okri, among others, for her rich and nuanced novels depicting Islamic spiritual and political life. Her new novel is an enchanting narrative of the years leading up to the British conquest of Sudan in 1898, and a deeply human look at the tensions between Britain and Sudan, Christianity and Islam, colonizer and colonized. In River Spirit, Aboulela gives us the unforgettable story of a people who - against the odds and for a brief time - gained independence from foreign rule through their willpower, subterfuge, and sacrifice.

When Akuany and her brother Bol are orphaned in a village raid in South Sudan, they’re taken in by a young merchant Yaseen who promises to care for them, a vow that tethers him to Akuany through their adulthood. As a revolutionary leader rises to power - the self-proclaimed Mahdi, prophesied redeemer of Islam - Sudan begins to slip from the grasp of Ottoman rule, and everyone must choose a side. A scholar of the Qur’an, Yaseen feels beholden to stand against this false Mahdi, even as his choice splinters his family. Meanwhile, Akuany moves through her young adulthood and across the country alone, sold and traded from house to house, with Yaseen as her inconsistent lifeline. Everything each of them is striving for - love, freedom, safety – is all on the line in the fight for Sudan.

Through the voices of seven men and women whose fates grow inextricably linked, Aboulela’s latest novel illuminates a fraught and bloody reckoning with the history of a people caught in the crosshairs of imperialism. River Spirit is a powerful tale of corruption, coming of age, and unshakeable devotion – to a cause, to one’s faith, and to the people who become family.