Acclaimed Sudanese movie Cotton Queen by Doha-based filmmaker screens at MIA

As Sudan grapples with devastating conflict, filmmaker Suzannah Mirghani's acclaimed movie Cotton Queen offers a respite, exploring love, community, memory, and a hopeful future. The Doha-based Sudanese-Russian director's debut film, written in 2020 before the ongoing crisis, is currently screening at the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in Qatar, part of the Doha Film Institute (DFI) Cinema Contemporary Releases series.

Running from September 23-26 at 7pm, the film is displayed in Arabic with Arabic and English subtitles, with tickets available through the DFI website.

Cotton Queen transcends its status as a simple Sudanese story, delving into themes of people, memory, identity, tradition, change, and the journey of growing up. It presents a hopeful vision of a future for the country, despite the present-day devastation. Director Mirghani believes the film's themes resonate with the current situation in Sudan, providing a creative space to envision a brighter future where sunlight, cotton fields, and the Nile River are abundant, and strong-willed individuals share love, poetry, and resilience.

The film follows 15-year-old Nafisa, navigating family expectations, tradition, marriage, modernization, and her desire to determine her own future. Set in a Sudanese cotton-farming village, the story centers around Sudanese women and girls, exploring questions of identity, power, girlhood, and choice. Mirghani emphasizes the film's focus on everyday, ordinary life, as seen through the eyes of Nafisa and her family.

Despite being filmed in Egypt due to the conflict, the film remains rooted in Sudanese language, stories, traditions, and memories.