In 2021, just as his compatriots were coming to terms with the Sudanese Revolution, Yasir Faiz began interviewing a group of female detainees. He had dreamt up a film idea. After some time, he finished a script based on his research, and then it was time to shoot.
“But there was a coup,” he said evenly. We were speaking near the Piazza Grande in Switzerland during the Locarno Film Festival.
It became necessary to adjust expectations, if only because Faiz’s story involved shooting at an actual prison, for which he had permission. But the coup had forced a change in government, and the new one wasn’t especially friendly. It certainly didn’t help that the story could be interpreted, rightly perhaps, as critical of their actions. “The security people arrested women and put them in badly aggressive situations,” he told me.
To continue, they had to build the cells themselves at “a secret location” to prevent government interference. But the challenges were far from over. For one, the actresses needed to be trained, given that only “one or two”—of the film’s small female cast—had any experience acting before. Shooting took nine days, at which point, it seemed everything would proceed as planned.
But the country erupted once again.
“The war came,” he said. And once again, plans had to be adjusted. He wanted to get partly edited footage from his office but couldn’t. The man he sent was arrested on the way. The office was later robbed and destroyed anyway, leaving Faiz with no option but to head overseas to complete postproduction. These days, Faiz lives in Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, but his project was eventually wrapped up in Egypt.
Obviously, the film’s budget had changed considerably, given all of the unforeseen events. But as it was a self-financed project, Faiz had no reason to explain to a financier why he might need more money. Nonetheless, funds to offset increased production costs have to come from somewhere. In this case, that funding came from In Deep Visions, Faiz’s production outfit.
Over the years, In Deep Visions had been successful working for conventions, international bodies, and TV shows. “We wanted to localise production in Sudan because there is no industry or structure,” he said. One of the byproducts of that attempt was money—enough money to make projects that may not be immediately profitable, like Bougainvillea, the short film that started with the interviewing of female Sudanese detainees just after the revolution. Although it took longer than anticipated, it did become Faiz’s fiction directing debut and led to his invitation to Open Doors.
Inevitably, perhaps, the film has the good intentions and featherweight technique one might expect from a political work made in an industry not quite as developed as the continent’s heavyweight film industries in countries like Morocco or South Africa. Yet, it is innovative in its own way. Shot mostly in a single interior location, Bougainvillea captures the interactions between inmates of an all-female detention centre in the wake of a political protest. The story also involves a love story of tragic proportions.
Already, the film has received attention. Besides its Locarno screening and its premiere at Canada’s MENA Festival, the film has been showed to audiences at several venues, including festivals in Iraq and Jordan.
In speaking about his journey to making his first short film, Faiz appeared gratified that after his time and effort, he had been invited for screenings in several countries outside of Africa, but he also had his eyes on possibilities within the continent. So, while being in Switzerland had provided an opportunity to have “promising conversations” with potential western collaborators, he added that he was just as glad to speak to fellow African filmmakers in the Open Doors section.
Together, he said, “we can think about how to build an ecosystem for Africa’s film industry”.
