Friday, September 29 at 4:30pm | The Main Cinema
About Heroic Bodies
Dir. Sara Suliman | 2022 | Sudan | Arabic with English subtitles | 95 min
Sudanese women have been robbed of the rights to their own bodies in recent times, enduring brutal forms of oppression, abuse, and violations. Heroic Bodies explores the various forms of struggle Sudanese women have faced. It shines light on their fight to take back the rights to their bodies and establish their freedom. The film showcases women tapping into the body politics of resistance through demonstrations, civil disobedience, and hunger strikes. The women take centerstage, exposing themselves to imprisonment and torture in their persistent pursuit of the right to education and bodily autonomy. They enroll in medical training, break social norms by becoming artists and entertainers, embrace a matriarchal religion of women worship such as Zar, and let their bodies be free.
Director’s Bio
Sara Suliman is a UK-based Sudanese filmmaker, Chevening scholar, researcher, activist, producer, and director. She is a founder of Fenti Productions, an independent film production house. Her first feature film, Heroic Bodies, had its world premiere in IDFA (2022) in the “Frontlight” section, the first Sudanese feature film to be selected in that section in the history of IDFA. The film also won the Audience Award in Malmo Arab Film Festival 2023 and the Shireen Abu Akleh award for Best Documentary Film in the Jerusalem Arab Film Festival. Suliman is a dedicated feminist and youth advocate, believing that Sudanese women and youth have stories yearning to be told and yet to be heard. She has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Ahfad University for Women in Sudan (2010) and an MA in gender studies from SOAS, University of London (2017).
Presented by Mizna
Mizna is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab and Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than twenty years, we have been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art.