Wednesday 8 May
10am, 2:30pm, 5pm, 7:30pm
Director Mohamed Kordofani
Drama
Sudan
Arabic (English subtitles)
120 minutes
Across the divides of rich and poor, Muslim and Christian, north and south, light-skinned and dark, Mona and Julia become friends. Goodbye Julia tells the story of two women who represent the complicated relationship and differences between northern and southern Sudanese communities. It takes place in Khartoum during the last years of Sudan as a united country, shortly before the 2011 separation of South Sudan.
Mona, an upper-middle-class former popular singer from the North, who lives with her husband Akram, seeks to attenuate her feelings of guilt for causing the death of a Southern man by employing Julia, his unsuspecting widow, as her maid.
It is worth noting that Goodbye Julia is the first film produced in Sudan since the revolution.
Kordofani’s fine direction balances the film’s multiple modes: It’s a drama, with shades of a thriller and a sense of its own politics. – Lovie Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter
An incredible film…a heightened pressure cooker…a morality play with intimate personal drama. –Stephen A. Russell, Sunday Arts Magazine Podcast (JOY94.9)