Washington, D.C. Film Festival
- All About Darfur
- Director: Taghreed Elsanhouri
Documentary. 2005. Sudan/UK. 82 min. English and Arabic, Subtitled.
Up until now, the perilous events in Darfur have been explained by outsiders, or by so called leaders and officials, who often to do not communicate the complexity of the situation. In All About Darfur, Sudanese filmmaker Taghreed Elsanhouri talks with ordinary Sudanese in outdoor tea shops, markets, refugee camps and living rooms about how deeply rooted prejudices could suddenly burst into a wild fire of ethnic violence. The film includes interviews with intellectuals, activists, and genocide survivors and pays particular attention to the opinions and concerns of women.
While documenting the atrocities taking place in Darfur, Elsanhouri investigates how notions of race and ethnicity are constructed in Sudan. In one scene, Elsanhouri visits the elementary school she had previously attended. Just as in the days of her childhood, the students reenact the battles which led to the formation of Sudan, with the lighter skinned children playing Turks and Arabs, and the darker skinned children playing the vanquished Africans. Despite its significance, race, Elsanhouri discovers, may be too crude a concept to understand Sudan's bitter ethnic conflict. Ultimately, Elsanhouri encourages viewers to understand that the ethnic strife in Darfur is a product of scarcity, as Darfurians are dividing along ethnic lines to battle for limited resources.
- Showings
Friday, September 15 at 8:30pm – National Geographic Society Headquarters
Followed by a panel discussion featuring Gayle Smith, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, John Prendergast, Special Adviser, International Crisis Group and Dr Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Outreach Director with the University of Pennsylvania's African Studies Center and President of the Sudan Studies Association. The panel will be moderated by Lynn Fredriksson, Advocacy Director for Africa at Amnesty International USA.