Suhaib Gasmelbari (born 17 December 1979,
Omdurman
Omdurman () is a major city in Sudan. It is the second most populous city in the country, located in the State of Khartoum. Omdurman lies on the west bank of the River Nile, opposite and northwest of the capital city of Khartoum. The city acts ...
,
Sudan
Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...
) is a Sudanese film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer.
Biography
Gasmelbari was born in
Omdurman, Sudan in December 1979. He lived parts of his early childhood in Russia before returning to Sudan.
At the age of 16, Gasmelbari went into exile in the
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...
to avoid the forced military conscription implemented by the government of Sudan in the midst of the
Second Sudanese Civil War
The Second Sudanese Civil War was a conflict from 1983 to 2005 between the central Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement, Sudan People's Liberation Army. It was largely a continuation of the First Sudanese Civil Wa ...
. In the Emirates, he finished high school. He later briefly attended a university in Alexandria, Egypt, before moving to
Tours, France
Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metropolitan ar ...
in 2002 with the intention of learning French language and studying literature and philosophy.
Gasmelbari later studied cinema at the
University of Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis
Paris 8 University (), or usually the University of Vincennes in Saint-Denis or Paris 8, is a public university in the Paris Metropolitan Area, Greater Paris, France. Once part of the historic University of Paris, it is now an autonomous public ...
. After graduation, he found work as a freelance cameraman and editor, working with journalists on reports for Al Qarra,
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...
and
France 24
France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned publicly funded international news television network based in Paris. Its channels, broadcast in French, English, Arabic and Spanish, are aimed at the overseas market.
Based in the Paris suburb ...
TV stations.
For his master's degree, Gasmelbari attempted to direct a fictional film, but had difficulty getting official permits and dropped the project.
Next, he directed short films and researched the Sudanese film archives, discovering old Sudanese films.
Gasmelbari released the film ''Sudan's Forgotten Films'' in 2017, which was named the "Arts and Culture Story of the Year" at the 2018 FPA Media Awards. He has taken part in projects saving and digitizing films such as those of Sudanese film directors active during the 1960s Ibrahim Shaddad, Suleiman Mohamed Ibrahim and Eltayeb Mahdi.
In 2019, Gasmelbari directed his first feature-length film, a
documentary
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
called ''
Talking About Trees'', which was produced by Marie Balducchi.
He had to film it entirely in secret, due to state suppression.
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...
2019 and also won the Audience Award at the same festival. The film went on to win the FIPRESCI Prize at the International Istanbul Film Festival
The Istanbul Film Festival () is the first and oldest international film festival in Turkey, organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts. It is held every year in April in movie theaters in Istanbul, Turkey. As mentioned in its re ...
.,Tanit d'or
The Tanit d'or is the grand prize of the Carthage Film Festival, hosted annually in Tunisia. The award is named after Tanit, the lunar goddess of ancient Carthage and takes the shape of her symbol, a triangle surmounted by a horizontal line and a ...
at Carthage Film Festival
Carthage Film Festival (Journées cinématographiques de Carthage, or JCC) is an annual film festival that takes place in Tunis, founded in 1966. It is also known by its Arabic title, ("Cinema Days of Carthage"). Initially biennial alternating ...
, Golden Star at El Gouna Film Festival
The El Gouna Film Festival (GFF; ) is an annual film festival established in 2017, held in the Red Sea resort town of El Gouna, Egypt. The event is hosted by the El Gouna Convention and Culture Centre. The festival focuses on storytelling trends, ...
, The Documentary Award at Palm Springs International Film Festival
Palm Springs International Film Festival (sometimes stylized shortly as PSIFF) is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. Originally promoted by Mayor Sonny Bono and then sponsored by Nortel,here for Table of Contents it started in 19 ...
, Grand Jury Prize at Mumbai Film Festival
The Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) is a public trust that organises the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival in the city of Mumbai, India. Priyanka Chopra, Priyanka Chopra Jonas is the chairperson of the trust while Shivendra Singh Dungarpur serves ...
. In Sep 2019, Gasmelbari was distinguished with the MENA Award by Variety Magazine
''Variety'' is an American trade magazine owned by Penske Media Corporation. It was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933, ''Daily Variety'' was launched, based in ...
, an award given to the best cinematic talent in the Middle East and North Africa.
In an article for the British Film Institute, Gasmelbari commented on the four filmmakers and his documentary:
Selected filmography
*2012: ''Oda Nagam (Ode to my Feet)''
*2017: ''Sudan's forgotten films''
*2019: '' Talking about trees''
See also
* Cinema of Sudan
Cinema of Sudan refers to both the history and present of the making or screening of films in cinemas or film festivals, as well as to the persons involved in this form of audiovisual culture of the Sudan and its history from the late nineteent ...
References
External links
Suhaib Gasmelbari
at the Internet Movie Database
IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...
''Talking about Trees'' - Trailer
on Vimeo
Vimeo ( ) is an American Online video platform, video hosting, sharing, and services provider founded in 2004 and headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices and operates on a ...
''Sudan’s forgotten films'' - Documentary by Suhaib Gasmelbari for Aljazeera
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gasmelbari, Suhaib
1979 births
Living people
People from Omdurman
Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis alumni
Sudanese documentary film directors
21st-century Sudanese artists
Sudanese screenwriters