Can artistic freedom survive in Sudan? The writing’s on the wall…

The recent coup dashed hopes raised by the end of the military regime but newly liberated artists refuse to submit quietly

In the new dawn of a heady post-revolutionary era, Suzannah Mirghani returned in 2019 to the country of her birth for the first time in years. Her mission was to shoot a short film on Sudanese soil. It proved unexpectedly straightforward.

When the revolution happened, there was this exuberance," she says, from her Qatari home. When we came to make our film, we were given the green light. We were told: Anything you want'.