The Berlinale Calls for the Release of Hajooj Kuka

The Berlin International Film Festival joins the international protest against the arrest of Sudanese filmmaker Hajooj Kuka and four other artists. The group of artists has been randomly charged with causing a public nuisance.

We call for their immediate release by the Sudanese authorities.

Hajooj Kuka is a prominent Sudanese filmmaker and member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. As a director of both documentary and fiction films, his work has received critical acclaim world-wide. Born in Sudan, Kuka studied in Lebanon and in the United States and currently resides in Sudan. His documentary Beats of the Antonov on war, music and the resilience of the people of the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains, won the People’s Choice Award at 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, in addition to six other film festival awards. Due to his work, he was listed in the Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the Leading Global Thinkers of 2014. In 2016, Hajooj Kuka participated in Berlinale Talents. His first narrative feature film aKasha was supported by the Berlinale World Cinema Fund and premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2018. Alongside his filmmaking, he also teaches drama and filmmaking to young artists in Khartoum and is the co-founder of the Refugee Club, an alliance of Sudanese artists whose work reflects an awareness of the transitory state of migration.