Goodbye Julia · reception & legacy
2023 · Mohamed Kordofani
How Goodbye Julia has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
It premiered at Cannes 2023 as the first Sudanese film ever in the festival's official selection — weeks after civil war erupted back home, which turned a festival debut into something closer to a dispatch, and its stature as the flagship of new Sudanese cinema has only grown since.
Its footprint
Alongside You Will Die at Twenty, it's become the entry point to Sudanese cinema for international audiences — a film festivals and critics reach for whenever Sudan's war is in the news, made more poignant by the fact that war-torn Sudan itself had almost nowhere left to screen it.
Where it stands
A festival-circuit landmark and Un Certain Regard Freedom Prize winner that's fast becoming the 'you must have seen this' title of Sudan's tiny but rising film wave.