International Law & Popcorn: Khartoum

English-Language Event Series in the Summer Semester of 2026

in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Law and

the nonprofit human rights organization Just Access e.V.

KHARTOUM (Original with subtitles)

Mon, July 6, 8:00 p.m.
Discussed by Mark Somos (Just Access e.V.)

SUD/GB/D/Q | Directors: Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy, Timeea M. Ahmed, Phil Cox | 80 min.  
Documentary

Khartoum (2025) is in chaos. Filming began before the latest civil war broke out in April 2023. Most people, both inside and outside Sudan, thought the conflict wouldn’t last long, so the filmmakers stayed and captured both its outbreak and its escalation. In the final version, which won the Peace Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, pre-war footage is intercut with the reenacted memories of five survivors who managed to flee: two boys, Lokain and Wilson; Majdi, a civil servant; Khadmallah, a tea stall owner; and Jawad, a volunteer with the resistance committee.  

*Khartoum* is commendably uncontrolled not only because it captures unfolding events, but also because it chooses to grant considerable creative autonomy to the survivors. To tell their stories in their own way, each survivor asks the others to help reenact key experiences. The boys become someone’s sons; Khadmallah stands in for a girlfriend; Majdi and Jawad act as both victims and perpetrators in someone else’s recreated recollection. Their memories flow seamlessly into a single pool that becomes a silent, undogmatic, and clear mirror for us, the viewers.  

Thanks to its creativity, authenticity, and dignity, *Khartoum* turns its relinquishment of control into an asset. In it, a nation, its many tribes, and its 54 million people—25 million of whom are starving, 22 million are children, 10 million are internally displaced, and 4 million have fled abroad—find a voice and are portrayed in vibrant color. Khartoum’sintense humanity will change you—at least for a while.