New Sudanese Film ‘Heroic Bodies’ Debuts at IDFA 2022

Heroic Bodies, a new Sudanese documentary film by Sudanese filmmaker Sara Suliman, has made its debut at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2022, one of the leading documentary festivals in the world.

صور ومقتطفات من العرض الأول لفيلم أجساد بطولية بمهرجان ادفا في امستردام
Form our film premiere Heroicbodies
at IDFA film festival in Amsterdam@HeroicBodies pic.twitter.com/ToFSErdVAQ

— السارة (@Sara_Suliman_SD) November 20, 2022

The feature documentary was selected in the Frontline section at IDFA 2022, which took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands from 9 to 20 November 2022. ‘This year’s Frontlight section consists of 23 films, showcasing a leading cohort of truth-seeking filmmakers who don’t compromise on stylistic integrity. Together, they reflect on some shocking global developments in the media industry, the economic systems that preside over lives around the world and urgent political events currently unfolding around us,’ said IDFA.

Heroic Bodies highlights the development of the Sudanese women’s movement within the framework of the body politics. It investigates how the human body was used as a means of resistance against the state, patriarchy and colonial oppression. This film demonstrates different events in which the body became a common refractor for various kinds of repression and resistance that occurred during the eras of British colonialism and post-independence. It will further examine how the body engaged in creative practices that contributed to the process of Sudanese women’s emancipation.

The documentary features some of Sudan’s most notable figures such as Hadia Talsam, member of the all-female Sudanese band, Al Balabil; Professor Balghis Badri, gender activist and the Director of the Regional Institute for Gender Diversity Peace and Rights at Ahfad University for Women; Fatma Algadal, women’s rights activist; Dr Ihsan Fagiri, founder of the No to Women’s Oppression initiative; Professor Fatima Babiker Mahmoud, founder of the Pan African Women’s Liberation Organisation (PAWLO); Kamal Ibrahim Ahmed, entrepreneur and businessman; and more.

Heroic Bodies was a result of Suliman’s dissertation, The Sudanese Women’s Movement: Body Politics and the Process of Emancipation, when she was pursuing a master’s degree in Gender Studies from SOAS University of London in 2017. She then began to develop the dissertation into film in 2018.

Moreover, motivated by the belief in the significance of women’s role in social change, she utilised social media as a tool for change, activism, and creative storytelling, enabling her to use her ever-increasing base as a platform for the voices of Sudanese women and youth to reach the world. Armed with three years of intensive research in body politics and women’s rights movement, inspired by the Sudanese women and youth participating in the ongoing political and social scene in Sudan, and motivated to tell their story, Suliman was empowered to make her debut as director and producer with her first feature documentary film, Heroic Bodies.

Suliman is a UK-based Sudanese filmmaker; a Chevening scholar, researcher, activist, producer, and director; and founder of Fenti (Dates in Nubian Dialect) Productions, a newly established independent film production house. She is a dedicated feminist and youth advocate, believing that Sudanese women and youth have a story yearning to be told and yet to be heard. 

Suliman received a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Ahfad University for Women in 2010 and received a master’s degree in Gender Studies from SOAS University of London in 2017. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Documentary Filmmaking at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).