Global Audiences Resonate With ‘Goodbye Julia,’ a Film About Two Sudanese Families Shattered by Tragedy

 

For a debut film, “Goodbye Julia” has been graced with many ‘firsts,’ becoming the first Sudanese work to participate in the Cannes International Film Festival and go on to win several awards. Like his previous short film, “Nyerkuk” (2016), Kordofani continues to captivate his audience with drama, airing out wounds that are as relevant today as they were in 2005. The quiet frustrations within the walls of a home can feel just as loud as the unrest overtaking the city streets.

 

Indirectly, the film found its intended audience in Egypt, where non-Egyptian films are generally overlooked by the public. The last Sudanese work to make a splash in Egyptian cinema was director Amjad Abu El-Ela’s “You Will Die at Twenty” (2019). Zawya Cinema, owned by Misr International Films, the production company founded by the late world-renowned Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, hosted the first showings of “Goodbye Julia,” which quickly spread. A more prominent Sudanese presence in Egypt brought screenings to 35 theaters, earning a revenue of three million Egyptian pounds (roughly $100,000). 

 

While Egypt’s reception made up a significant portion of the success, the film’s audience reached beyond the Sudanese community and resonated with many people of different nationalities. “Goodbye Julia” has since been distributed in at least 19 Arab and European countries, according to its distributor MAD Solutions. It has won over 20 Arab and international awards, including the Best Film Award at the Luxor African Film Festival in Egypt and the Baghdad Film Festival in Iraq, as well as the Roger Ebert Award at the Chicago International Film Festival, the Cinema for Humanity Award, and the Prix de la Liberté at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, among others. Kordofani won the Best Director Award for First Fiction at the 18th edition of the Cyprus International Film Festival, and Eiman Yousif took home the Best Actor Award at the same festival.