Gadalla Gubara
Gadalla Gubara | |
---|---|
Born | 1920 |
Died | 2008 (aged 87–88) |
Nationality | Sudan |
Occupation | Cameraman, film producer, filmmaker, photographer |
Gadalla Gubara (Arabic: جاد الله جبارة, 1920–2008) was a Sudanese cameraman, film producer, director and photographer. Over five decades, he produced more than 50 documentaries and three feature films. He was a pioneer of African cinema, having been co-founder of both the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers FEPACI and the FESPACO Film festival (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso).[1] His daughter, Sara Gubara, who is a graduate of the Cinema Institute in Cairo, Egypt, assisted him with his later film projects, after he had lost his eyesight. She is considered to be Sudan's first female film director.[2]
Early life[]
Gubara was born in Khartoum, Sudan in 1920. His father was a farmer, and a part of the extended family of Muhammad Ahmad. During World War II, he served as an officer in the Royal Corps of Signals on the North African front. Here, the troops were accompanied by the Colonial Film Unit, who screened films such as Desert Victory, Our African Soldiers on Active Service and With Our African Troops in the Middle East for the troops. This was Gubara's first exposure to film, leading him to seek training after the war, while stationed in London and Cyprus.[3]
After his training, the British Film Unit commissioned him to return to Sudan and make educational films about the country's agriculture schemes to be screened to the locals across the country. While doing this, Gubara also screened a number of more comedic films for the rural populations.
Career[]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Sudan_independence_2.png/220px-Sudan_independence_2.png)
Gubara was also one of Sudan's first photographers, capturing for example the raising of the flag of the newly independent country on January 1st, 1956.[4][5] In a late recognition, some of his photographs were presented in 2015 at the retrospective exhibition 'The Khartoum School: the making of the modern art movement in Sudan (1945–present)' by the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE.[6]
In 1955, Gubara produced Africa's first colour film, Song of Khartoum, a contribution to the genre of films about avant-garde cities. The years following independence in 1956 were marked by an atmosphere of political and cultural awakening in Sudan. Gubara became the main filmmaker for the newly established Sudan Film Unit under the Ministry of Culture and Information. During this period, he documented many events and everyday life with his camera: Government meetings with president Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt or Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassi on a state visit, the nightlife of Khartoum, the construction of railway lines, factories and dams.[7] At the end of the 1950s, he received a grant to continue his film studies at the University of Southern California, and was appointed as director of the Sudan Film Unit upon his return in 1962.[8]
Wanting to produce his own documentaries and, most of all, feature films, he left the Sudan Film Unit and set up Sudan's first private film studio, Studio Gad, in 1974.[9] His first feature film Tajouj is a dramatic story about the unhappy love of two suitors towards the heroine, set in rural Eastern Sudan, and featured the actor Salah ibn Albadya.[10] Tajouj won the Nefertiti Statue, Egypt's highest film award, at the Cairo International Film Festival in 1982, and won prizes at film festivals in Alexandria, Ouagadougou, Tehran, Addis Ababa, Berlin, Moscow, Cannes and Carthage.[4]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Viva_Sara.jpg/220px-Viva_Sara.jpg)
In 1984, Gubara published a semi-documentary short film called 'Viva Sara'. It tells the story of his daughter Sara, who despite her physical handicap from having suffered from polio as a child, became Sudan's first participant in an international competition for swimmers between the island of Capri and the city of Naples in Italy.[11]
Gubara was still working at the age of eighty-eight. He lost his sight at the age of 80, when his studio had been confiscated by the government, but continued with his last film projects, with his daughter Sara Gubara assisting him.[12] In 2006, he received the 'Award for Excellence' for his career at the Africa Movie Academy Awards.[13] Highlighting perhaps his most prolific era, the Sudanese author Omar Zaki wrote: "Gubara's films from the 1960s and 70s capture what many refer to as "the Golden Era of Sudan" when "Khartoum was the Beirut ... or ... the Paris of Africa". At the time, Khartoum was a multicultural city with dozens of Catholic, Protestant, Coptic, and Ethiopian churches, and a variety of ethnic communities - Jewish, Armenian, Syrian, Greek, Lebanese, and Serbian. This rings true with Gubara's memories of the capital: "Khartoum was an open city; it had all kinds of amusements, it had nightclubs. People can play freely, can dance...But when the sharia started with Nimeiry, Khartoum became just like an Islamic town."[4]
In 2008, French filmmaker Frédérique Cifuentes made a documentary film about Gubara, called Cinema in Sudan: Conversations with Gadalla Gubara[14] Between 2014 and 2016, a large part of Gubara's films were digitised by the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art [1] in Berlin, Germany,[15] and have been shown again to audiences in Sudan as well as abroad.[16]
Filmography (feature films)[]
- Tajouj (1977)
- Barakat Al-Sheikh (1998)
- Les misérables, adaptation of the novel by Victor Hugo (2006)[17]
See also[]
- Cinema of Sudan
- Photography of Sudan
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Arsenal: the film holdings of gadalla gubara (2013, 2016)". Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
- ^ von Schroeder, Katharina (2015-08-27). "Studio Gad: the value of visual memory". worldpolicy.org. Retrieved 2021-04-21.
- ^ Korinth, Nadja. "The Omega Man. Gadalla Gubara and the half-life of Sudanese cinema". Bidoun.org. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Zaki, Omar (2012-09-16). "Sudan: Gadalla Gubara - a Forgotten Filmmaking Legend". allAfrica.com. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
- ^ As journalist Omar Zaki wrote in his article 'Sudan: Gadalla Gubara - a forgotten filmmaking legend': "Gubara and fellow scriptwriter Kamal Ibrahim, were the only cameramen to record Sudan's Independence on January 1st 1956. He captured the symbolic moments when democratically elected Prime Minister Ismail Al-Azhari walked from the parliament to the presidential palace and replaced the British and Egyptian flags with the blue, gold, and green flag of Sudan."
- ^ "The Khartoum School: The making of the Modern Art movement in Sudan (1945 – present)". Sharjah Art Foundation. 2016. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
- ^ See, for example, the restored short news reels on Studio Gad webpage in the section External links of this article.
- ^ "The film holdings of Gadalla Gubara". Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V. Retrieved 2019-11-23.
- ^ Life in film: preserving the legacy of Sudanese film-maker Jadallah Jubara, The Guardian, 26 July 2016.
- ^ Tajouj (1977) - IMDb, retrieved 2021-04-02
- ^ The German review of a screening of 'Viva Sara!' in Berlin in 2015, called this film "one of the most beautiful film moments of the year". - It describes the content like this: "Sara, handicapped by polio, had taken part in the Capri-Naples swimming marathon as a young woman. 35 kilometres in the open sea. A good decade later, her proud father wanted to share this with 'Viva Sara'. As an incentive and hope for girls in Sudan that anything can be done." Klingler, Nino. "Die schönsten Retrospektivenmomente: Jahresrückblick (3)". critic.de (in German). Retrieved 2021-04-21.
- ^ Ellerson, Beti (2010-12-07). "Sara Gubara: Her father's eyes". African Women in cinema blog. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
- ^ Frederique Cifuentes, dir., Cinema in Sudan: Conversations with Gadalla Gubara.
- ^ Cifuentes, Frederique (2010-11-20), Cinema in Sudan: Conversations with Gadalla Gubara (Documentary), Gadalla Gubara, retrieved 2020-12-14
- ^ "Studio Gad Archive – The heritage of the Sudanese filmmaker Gadalla Gubara". Studio Gad archive. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
- ^ AFP (2016-07-26). "Life in film: preserving the legacy of Sudanese film-maker Jadallah Jubara". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
- ^ Les misérables, retrieved 2019-11-20
External links[]
- Cinema in Sudan: Conversations with Gadalla Gubara (Documentary about his life and work)
- TED talk by Sara Gubara about her life and collaboration with her father (In Arabic with English subtitles)
- Gadallah Gubara at IMDb
- Studio Gad - Information and short documentary films by Gubara, from Khartoum in the 1970s
- Video report on Gubara's last feature film Les miserables, starting from 8:00 in part 2 of the video
- Short video, with Gubara talking about his life and work
- Photographs by Gubara from the archives of elnour.org
- 1920 births
- 2008 deaths
- Sudanese documentary film directors
- Sudanese photographers
- British Army personnel of World War II
- Royal Corps of Signals officers
- Sudanese film producers
- Sudanese film directors