Sudanese short film
Al-Sit, directed by
Suzannah Mirghani, continues to reap more awards, raising its tally to 27 awards now, including 5 awards from Oscar-qualifying festivals. The new award is the
Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short from the
AFI- American Film Institute in Los Angeles. “a densely layered and truly cinematic experience” the jury stated.
In a cotton-plantation in Sudan, 15-year-old
Nafisa has a crush on
Babiker, but her parents have arranged her marriage to Nadir, a young Sudanese businessman who lives abroad. However,
Nafisa’s grandmother Al-Sit, the powerful village matriarch, has her own plans for
Nafisa’s future. Will
Nafisa be able to choose for herself?
The film presents a sentimental story that revolves around Sudanese women, the powerful and the vulnerable while shedding the light on both ends of the social chain as well as the changes imposed by modernity on Sudanese Society.
Recently, the film won the
Best Narrative Short at the
New Orleans Film Festival in the USA, and was screened at
Carthage Film Festival (JCC), and
Sharjah International Film Festival for Children & Youth (SIFF). The film has also received over 20 significant awards, including
Best Director at
Beirut International Women Film Festival,
Best Short Film and
Chairman's award at
Zanzibar International Film Festival,
Best short film at
Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts where the judge panel voted unanimously to award it
Best Short Film, as well as
Audience Choice Award, and the
Jury Award for Most Promising Filmmaker for the film’s director at
Toronto Arab Film Festival. Moreover, the film snatched the
Grand Prix at the 51
st edition of the
Oscar-qualifying Tampere Film Festival; two awards at
Malmo Arab Film Festival, Sweden
; Best Script award and
Special Mention at
Huesca International Film Festival, Spain
; Special Jury award at
Busan International Short Film Festival, Korea, the
Award for Excellence in Arab Filmmaking at
The European Independent Film Festival, France, and
SUDU Prize for Best Short Film at
The Quibdó Africa Film Festival.
Furthermore, it nabbed the
Canal+/Cine+ Award, which was presented by the French channel
Canal Plus Cinema within the
Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, where the film landed its international premiere, and it had its world premiere at the latest edition of the
Ajyal Film Festival in Qatar.
Al-Sit is written and directed by
Suzannah Mirghani, who co-produced it along with
Eiman Mirghani, and stars
Mihad Murtada,
Rabeha Mohammed,
Mohammed Magdi, Alsir Mahjoub and
Haram Basher. The film is distributed in the Arab world by
MAD Solutions and has previously received a development workshop and a production grant from
Doha Film Institute, as well as a design grant from
VCUarts Qatar. It was also supported by Highlight Productions, On Set Team for Media Productions, and Sudan Film Factory
Suzannah Mirghani is a writer, researcher, and independent filmmaker. She is a media studies and museum studies graduate. Being mixed-race (Sudanese and Russian), she is interested in stories about the complexity of identity. Suzannah is the writer, director, and producer of
Al-Sit (2020, Sudan/Qatar), which won 26 international awards, including four Academy Award qualifying prizes. Her latest short is the experimental documentary/social media satire
Virtual Voice (2021), which premiered at
Tribeca Film Festival. Suzannah is currently working on her first feature
Cotton Queen, a magical realism tale set in the cotton fields of Sudan.