Sudan: Remember Us brings us face to face with hundreds of thousands of young Sudanese who made a revolution. On April 21, 2019, they deposed military dictator Omar El Bashir. Meanwhile young Sudanese revolutionaries in exile in Paris inspired filmmaker Hind Meddeb to document a historic sit-in as Khartoum youth joined in mass actions toward gaining the civilian government they had been promised.

FREEDOM, EXPERIENCED IN A ‘FEMINIST REVOLUTION’

Men and women had been working in unity to demand an end to racism, sexism and tribalism—numerous cell phone videos proved they were living the experience of freedom. Art, music and poetry were everywhere: in the cafes, the streets, on social media and on building walls. Parents, teachers and elders and even younger children supported them, declaring that it was a “feminist revolution.” The revolutionaries learned to care for the street children who helped build barricades and became advocates for them. Men and women threw off restrictions and repression of women. They insisted on an end to both the military dictatorship and the hegemony of the Islamic state.

The film begins and provides context with Meddeb reading the text message dialogues with four activists (now exiled) Shajane, Maha, Muzamil, Khatab—and the voice of poet Chaikoon—who are prominent in the footage. We hear and see the unfolding struggle; the excitement and joy in their experience of freedom, in their vision of the promised civilian government, along with the grim realities soon to close in. In one memorable scene three young women sail on the Nile, sip drinks and sing of their feelings. Beautiful but horrifying close-ups show young people painting new portraits of their murdered friends, adding to the extensive gallery of martyrs on building walls.

Two years later, on October 25, 2021, hundred of soldiers in heavy military APC’s firing machine guns rolled into Khartoum and destroyed the sit-in, signaling the Sudanese Armed Forces (SFA) coup. Soldiers, some of them children, sprayed people with bullets. Dark scenes reveal squares full of dead bodies, and capture reactions of people of all ages in shock. Meddeb showed soldiers kidnapping women, taking them to be raped, as evidence of unconscionable brutality. All the while, she filmed the young revolutionaries refusing to run, reciting their chants and poems of resistance under heavy fire, seeing their friends fall wounded or dead. (As late as December 2021 another film, Gidam (All the Way) Drums of Protest in Khartoum, continued to show the resistance.)

To see this film in a comfortable but nearly-empty auditorium in the National Arab American Museum, knowing the ongoing horrors of four more years, reveals the power of racist ethnic division. Way less acknowledged is the economic underpinning keeping the genocide going full blast, as neighboring countries fight to control Sudanese gold extraction, supported by a long list of larger players, including the U.S.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act, losing our puny democratic power altogether here is a starkly more real and immediate threat. Hearing, seeing and learning from young revolutionaries all over the world strengthens our fight at home. We can rely only on ourselves to stay informed of the breadth and depth of revolutionary activities. We can support showings and discussions of films like Sudan Remember Us (Offical Trailer Sudan Remember Us) and another excellent documentary (Gidam: (All the Way) Drums of Protest in Khartoum) and try to promote in-person showings wherever we live.*

—Susan Van Gelder

*To see a comprehensive view of other nearly unremembered yet vital revolutions and the connections Meddeb’s films create see Marye E. Gates’ excellent review “Female Filmmakers in Focus: Hind Meddeb on ‘Sudan, Remember Us.'”