‘Khartoum’ Receives Best Social Impact Documentary at the 2025 Hot Docs Festival
The award-winning Sudanese film Khartoum received the Bill Nemtin Award for Best Social Impact Documentary on 4 May 2025 at the 2025 Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, Canada.
The Bill Nemtin Award for Best Social Impact Documentary is presented to makers of a Hot Docs film ‘who find and tell compelling stories that inspire social or political change, and encourage their audiences to change their attitudes or behaviors or strive for policy change.’
Khartoum (2025) is a feature documentary that follows five people who navigate the dangerous landscape of war-torn Sudan, their stories intertwine as they pursue dreams, face political turmoil, and overcome obstacles. They struggle for freedom and survival in a chaotic country. Khadmallah, a single mother and tea lady, engages her daily clientele in gossip building up to the war but must rescue her daughter when fighting breaks out. Jawad is a rescue volunteer and medic who dreams of falling in love but flees to Egypt as the war kills his friends. Civil servant Magdi finds escapism from office life by racing pigeons with his son but must defend his house as fighting soon threatens to destroy all he has lived for.
Presented by Native Voice Films & Sudan Film Factory with BBC Storyville, Gisa Productions, Ayin Network & XTR, Khartoum is directed by Sudanese filmmakers Ibrahim Ahmed (Snoopy), Anas Saeed, Timeea Ahmed, and Rawia Alhag, and joined by British writer and director Phil Cox, and Palestinian film editor Yousef Jubeh.
As part of the award, the film crew was awarded USD10,000 cash prize from the Bill Nemtin Legacy Fund, which will help enable the winning film team to optimise the impact of the documentary through outreach and marketing activities.
Khartoum premiered on 27 January 2025 at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it participated in the World Documentary Competition. It was Sudan’s first documentary film ever featured at the prestigious film festival in the US.
Khartoum received the Berlinale 2025 Peace Award at the 75th annual Berlin International Film Festival, which took place from 13 and 23 February 2025 in Berlin, Germany.
The feature documentary is supported by Berlinale World Cinema Fund in cooperation with the Federal Foreign Office and the Goethe-Institut; the UK Global Screen fund financed by the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport administered by the BFI; and completed with the assistance of DocuBox-EADFF, Light Echo PIctures, IDFA Bertha Fund, Doha Film Institute, Qumra, Arabic Fund for Art & Culture, and Aflamuna Impact Fund.
The 2025 Hot Docs Festival took place from April 24 to May 4, presenting 113 documentaries from 47 countries to audiences in Toronto cinemas.
For more information, visit khartoummovie.com or hotdocs.ca/festivals/hot-docs-festival.
