By Saida Nor, The Seattle Medium
Sudanese Arabic dialect rang throughout the Langston Hughes halls as the crowd waited for the film “Goodbye Julia” to begin. Whispered giggles and shuffling feet hushed as the lights in the theater dimmed.
The first Sudanese film from Sudan ever to be screened at the renowned Cannes Film Festival headlined as the final film at the Seattle Black Film Festival on Sunday, April 28.
“Goodbye Julia” is a narrative drama by Mohamed Kordofani, a Sudanese filmmaker and screenwriter, that highlights the ethnic and religious division of Arab Muslim northerners and African Christian southerners after the Second Sudanese Civil War that took place from 1983 to 2005. The film is in Arabic with English subtitles and takes place right before the 2011 secession of South Sudan.
Isabella Price, manager of film programs at Langston Hughes, says that “Goodbye Julia” was on her radar and was pleasantly surprised when she saw it come through submissions. Every year, the festival opens up submissions for people to send in the films they’ve been working on.
Out of 180 submissions received, only 50 were picked. “Goodbye Julia” was on the top of everyone’s list. None of the filmmakers could attend, so the curators decided to place “Goodbye Julia” as the closing film so it could still have a spotlight.
“As a Black arts organization, we were thinking about what we could do for South Sudan,” Price said. “The struggle is interconnected. There is nothing that happens in a silo. There is no struggle that happens with one group of Black people that isn’t connected to Black people around the world.”
Issues that are a result of colonialism and western influence impact the diaspora of Black people as a whole. Price said this film brought a wider audience to these issues and highlighted both internal and external conflicts embedded throughout.
“Goodbye Julia” follows protagonist Mona, an upper-class northern Sudanese retired singer in Khartoum, who accidentally runs over a southern child and drives away. When the child’s father chases her, Mona calls her husband for help, resulting in the death of the child’s father by her husband’s hands.
Riddled with guilt about covering up a murder, Mona takes in the man’s widow and child in an effort to atone, but the two don’t know her role in the tragedy.
Throughout the film, shadows of the turmoil between Sudanese northerners and southerners reach Mona’s home, leaving her to confront the weight of her choices.
In the opening scenes for “Goodbye Julia,” Sudanese southerners are rioting and looting in the streets in a display of anger at the corrupt and repressive government.
Fatima Hamid, a Sudanese American attending the film festival, was born and raised in Sudan. Her eyes slowly began to well up, her hands clasped under her face, as she watched the movie and recalled images from her past.
“I remember in the back of my house watching people rioting and breaking things. That part was so accurate,” Hamid said. “I was crying in the middle of the film. The decor, the markets, the people, the faces… reminded me of home.”
For many Sudanese Americans who fled their home because of the war, the only frame of reference they have to their motherland is their memories. Due to the current war in Sudan, Hamid can’t go back home to visit.
“Goodbye Julia” offers a mirror to recollections that might’ve been lost and creates a sense of intimacy.
Sudan’s North-South conflict began with the Turko-Egyptian takeover in the early 19th century. Sudan is predominantly Muslim and Arab, whereas South Sudan is majority Christian and African. This Turko-Egyptian conquest led Arab Muslims to push their culture and religion onto African Christians, which sparked resistance.
The resistance deepened when the British administratively separated the regions. A civil war broke out in Sudan after they gained independence from British and Egyptian rule, and while there have been cycles of peace, underlying issues like racism and classism are still prevalent, as shown in the film.
Selam Yonas said films make learning about history more interesting and personal. She stumbled upon the film festival, happening in her neighborhood, right in time to catch the screening of “Goodbye Julia.”
“You can read about a war but you don’t know how that affects people interpersonally,” Yonas said. This film “provides people with more context and shows the cycles of war.”
A key turning point in “Goodbye Julia” is a conversation about the difference between reconciliation and forgiveness between Julia, the widow Mona took in, and a leader of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement.
“You can’t have reconciliation if you don’t admit the wrong you’ve done to the people you’ve done it to,” said Safia Hassan, who was there to watch the film. She said for the Sudanese: “There’s not a state right now where people are reconciling. You just forgive and move on.”
Hassan believes “Goodbye Julia” shows the artistic strength of film, a medium gentle enough to make dark history and uncomfortable truths accessible to audiences.
Fatima Ibrahim, a friend of Hassans’, recalls watching some of her favorite Sudanese YouTubers fall into discomfort when asked if they spoke Arabic. Depicted throughout the film are the various ways the Arabic language can be used to perpetuate classism in Sudan.
After watching “Goodbye Julia,” Ibrahim said she better understood the many factors of trauma that Sudanese people face due to the heavy influence of classism and racism. In particular, she was reminded of the discourse on Black Twitter about the Arabification of Africa. “I was like, ‘Oh, so this is what they’re talking about.’”
People’s unacknowledged biases and racism is omnipresent in the strife between Arabs and Africans in Sudan. We see this come into fruition with Mona’s unrecognized dislike and racism toward southerners.
“I love that the film, and I think it’s because it’s by a Black East African director,–didn’t demonize anyone,” Safia Hassan said. “It just showed the story, both types of lives and the flaws in both.”
“Goodbye Julia” has been shown exclusively at more than 30 film festivals worldwide and has recently reached their one-year milestone.
“Lupita Nyong’o is one of the producers on the film and was here in Seattle when somebody had run into her and told her that her movie was playing here,” Price said. “I feel good about that.”