Al Sit

by Suzannah Mirghani

2020, Sudan/Qatar, 20 mins
1:00 pm on Sept 24, 2022
PG

About the movie

English— In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, 15-year-old Nafisa has a crush on Babiker, but her parents have arranged her marriage to Nadir, a young Sudanese businessman living abroad. Nafisa’s grandmother Al-Sit, the powerful village matriarch, has her own plans for Nafisa’s future. But can Nafisa choose for herself?

Française—Dans un village cotonnier au Soudan, Nafisa, 15 ans, a le béguin pour Babiker, mais son mariage avec Nadir, jeune homme d’affaires soudanais vivant à l’étranger, a déjà été arrangé par ses parents. Al-Sit, grand-mère de Nafisa et forte matriarche du village, a ses propres plans pour l’avenir de Nafisa. Mais Nafisa peut-elle choisir pour elle-même?

Co-presented by

Council of South Sudanese Community of Manitoba

About the director

English — Suzannah Mirghani is a writer, researcher, and independent filmmaker. She is a media studies and museum studies graduate. 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 is currently screening on Netflix Middle East, and which won the Canal+ Award at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in 2021 as well as 6 Academy Award qualifying prizes at Tampere Film Festival; LA Shorts; BronzeLens; New Orleans Film Festival; AFI Fest; and Interfilm Berlin. Her latest short is the experimental documentary/social media satire VIRTUAL VOICE (2021), which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. Suzannah is working on her first feature COTTON QUEEN, which won the ArteKino Award at L’Atelier de la Cinefondation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.

Trailer