hajooj kuka | |
---|---|
Born | Sudan |
Nationality | Sudanese |
Alma mater | American University of Beirut, San Jose State University |
Occupation(s) | Director, War Correspondent |
Years active | 2004–present |
Notable work | Beats of the Antonov , aKasha |
Hajooj Kuka is the founder of Refugee Club and the director of Beats of the Antonov . [1] Kuka was born in Sudan of the Mahas ethnic group, but relocated with his family to Abu Dhabi. [2] Kuka travels frequently between Nuba Mountains and the Blue Niles for his creative works. He resides in both Sudan and Kenya.
In 2020 he was admitted as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. [3]
Kuka studied Electrical Engineering at American University of Beirut (AUB) and Digital Design at San Jose State University, California, USA. He began taking a variety of art classes which gradually led to his interest in filmmaking. [4]
Kuka moved back to Nuba around 2012 and begin working on documentary projects. [5] In 2014 his documentary Beats of the Antonov about war, music, and identity won the People's Choice Award at 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. Kuka worked on this documentary for two years with the aim of telling a story that worth sharing with the world. [6] Through his efforts, Kuka was listed in the Foreign Policy magazine as one of the Leading Global Thinkers of 2014 in the Chroniclers category. [7] He also co-founded a Sudanese artist collective called The Refugee Club, whose members include the American-Sudanese singer Alsarah. [8]
In 2018, Kuka directed his first narrative feature film aKasha , which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August 2018. [9]
Kuka is also a war correspondent in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. [10]
Kuka is an active member of Girifna, a non-violent resistance movement in Sudan. Kuka works with various activists in Sudan and in the diaspora for a transformed state of affairs in the country. Despite the non-violence stance, the Sudanese government hunts, tortures and jails Sudanese activists at will, and Kuka who has been detained himself, protests for their releases. [11]
In September 2020, Kuka was one of several artists arrested after religious militants attacked a theatre rehearsal where he was participating. [12] Several film industry figures, including producer Steven Markovitz and Toronto International Film Festival artistic director Cameron Bailey, called on the Sudanese government to immediately release Kuka and the other artists. [13]
The Nuba people are indigenous inhabitants of central Sudan. The Nuba are made up of 50 various indigenous ethnic groups who inhabit the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state in Sudan, encompassing multiple distinct people that speak different languages which belong to at least two unrelated language families. Since 2011, when the southern part of Sudan became an independent state as South Sudan, the Nuba now live in the southern part of Sudan. Estimates of the Nuba population vary widely; the Sudanese government estimated that they numbered 2.07 million in 2003.
George William Adam Rodger was a British photojournalist. He was noted for his work in Africa, and for photographing mass deaths at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the end of the World War II.
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Tomo Križnar is a peace activist, notable for delivering video cameras in Southern Kordofan to the local ethnic Nuba civilians in order to help them collect the evidence of North Sudan military's war crimes against them. He wrote several books. He was also a special envoy of then Slovenian president Janez Drnovšek for Darfur.
The Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile was an armed conflict in the Sudanese states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement–North (SPLM-N), a northern affiliate of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in South Sudan. After some years of relative calm following the 2005 agreement which ended the second Sudanese civil war between the Sudanese government and SPLM rebels, fighting broke out again in the lead-up to South Sudan independence on 9 July 2011, starting in South Kordofan on 5 June and spreading to the neighboring Blue Nile state in September. SPLM-N, splitting from newly independent SPLM, took up arms against the inclusion of the two southern states in Sudan with no popular consultation and against the lack of democratic elections. The conflict is intertwined with the War in Darfur, since in November 2011 SPLM-N established a loose alliance with Darfuri rebels, called Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF).
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The Good Lie is a 2014 American drama film written by Margaret Nagle and directed by Philippe Falardeau. The film stars Reese Witherspoon in the lead role, Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany, Emmanuel Jal, and Corey Stoll.
South Sudanese Australians are people of South Sudanese ancestry or birth who live in Australia.
Beats of the Antonov is a documentary film released in 2014. It is a Sudanese-South African coproduction, directed by Sudanese filmmaker Hajooj Kuka and produced by Hajooj Kuka and Steven Markovitz. The film documents the Sudan–SRF conflict in the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains regions, focusing in particular on the role of music in helping the affected communities to sustain themselves culturally and spiritually in the face of the ongoing conflict.
Alsarah, born Sarah Mohamed Abunama-Elgadi, is a Sudanese-American singer, songwriter, and ethnomusicologist. She is the leader of the group Alsarah & the Nubatones, and has performed with other groups such as The Nile Project. Her stage name is a combination of her given name with the Arabic definite article.
Akasha is a 2018 Sudanese comedic film written and directed by Hajooj Kuka about a Sudanese soldier caught between his love for his girlfriend and his AK-47. Kuka previously directed several documentaries. Akasha is his first narrative film and premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August 31, 2018.
Photography in Sudan refers to both historical as well as to contemporary photographs taken in the cultural history of today's Republic of the Sudan. This includes the former territory of present-day South Sudan, as well as what was once Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and some of the oldest photographs from the 1860s, taken during the Turkish-Egyptian rule (Turkiyya). As in other countries, the growing importance of photography for mass media like newspapers, as well as for amateur photographers has led to a wider photographic documentation and use of photographs in Sudan during the 20th century and beyond. In the 21st century, photography in Sudan has undergone important changes, mainly due to digital photography and distribution through social media and the Internet.
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 nineteenth century onwards. It began with cinematography during the British colonial presence in 1897 and developed along with advances in film technology during the twentieth century.
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