Goodbye Juliathe first-ever Sudanese feature film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival has been selected by Sudan as its second-ever Academy Awards entry for Best International Feature Film.
Earlier this year, the film, directed by Mohamed Kordofani, also won the Un sure Regard freedom prize at Cannes.
It takes place just before the secession of South Sudan in 2011. Goodbye Julia follows Mona (Eiman Yousif), a wealthy woman from the north, who seeks redemption after her husband shoots and kills a man from the south. While distraught, she hires the man’s wife Julia (Siran Riak) as her maid.
The film shows the complicated relationships and differences between North and South Sudanese communities.
Kordofani told it earlier The Hollywood Reporter that the film is “about the transformation of someone who realizes that he has been unconsciously racist and wants to overcome this racism. A transformation from someone who first adheres to social norms and traditions, who transforms into a little bit liberated and open-minded and who starts to question traditions, which play a role in the institutional racism that we have inherited, and things like the oppression that women suffer in our society.”
Goodbye Julia is represented by CAA Media Finance in North America. The film is produced by Amjad Abu Alala’s Station Films and co-produced by Ali Alarabi, CEO and Founder of Ambient Light.
“I am very grateful that the committee in Sudan has been reactivated and selected Goodbye Julia for the Oscars race despite the war,” Kordofani said in a statement after learning of the film’s submission. “This just shows how resilient and hopeful people in Sudan can be.
I feel deeply honored that my film is now on the list of Sudan’s submissions to the Academy, and I hope that we can be visible to the voters, so that – perhaps – we can be visible to the world and show it a different side of Sudan can show.”
