Daughter preserves Jubara’s legacy

Film legend a gift to Sudan

KHARTOUM, July 26, (AFP): As she drove past an apartment complex on a street in Khartoum, Sara Jadallah turned silent.

It was here that her late father, the legendary film-maker Jadallah Jubara, set up Sudan’s first private film studio in the 1970s.

But in 2008, following an eightyear court battle over ownership of the land, the government demolished Studio Jad.

The demolition, shortly before the film-maker’s death at the age of 88, left little trace of the studio.

But stopping next to the blocks of flats that now stand in its place, Jadallah pointed at a white patch on an old wall among the new buildings. “The screen is still there,” she said. With her father’s studio gone, Jadallah has vowed to preserve his life’s work.

With help from German experts, she has started digitising his entire film collection to create what she believes is Sudan’s first private archive of 15 and 35mm films.

“Through his camera he documented Sudan’s history. I want to preserve this legacy,” Jadallah, 66, told AFP at her home in a southern Khartoum district.

Jubara was once an officer in the British army. Shortly after World War II he began work as a projectionist in a British mobile film unit.

He went on to capture iconic moments in Sudan’s history, including the hoisting of the country’s flag as it

“Dope” helmer Rick Famuyiwa took over directing duties in June. The movie, however, appears to be able to meet its planned start date. Production is expected to commence sometime this year.

The studio is keeping Smith’s most recent draft of the script, which is based on a treatment by Chris Miller and Phil Lord.

Clemons’ star has risen significantly gained independence from Britain in 1956.

In a career spanning more than five decades, he produced more than 100 documentaries and four feature films, including a famous 1984 love story “Tajooj”.

But years of storage in poor conditions have taken a toll on his film archives.

“Film rolls have a life span and because of exposure to heat and dust they have been damaged,” said Jadallah.

Resistance

In his early years, Jubara faced resistance from a conservative Sudanese society, making it difficult for him to find actors.

But a determined Jubara encouraged family members to work with him, including Jadallah.

“He believed that cameramen were the most important people in the world... and in their hands was the most important weapon,” she said.

Jadallah, who made a name for herself as a national swimming champion despite having polio as a child, also studied film in Cairo.

She worked with her father when he began to lose his eyesight due to old age, helping him film part of an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables”.

Jubara’s documentaries included films on Darfur, where a deadly conflict since 2003 has killed tens of thousands of people.

His early films preserved a snapshot

since her breakout performance in “Dope.” She landed a role as one of Chloe Moretz’s sorority sisters in “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising,” as well as one of the leads in Sony’s remake of “Flatliners.”

She is repped by UTA, MJMG and Mach 1 Management. (RTRS) of Sudanese society before the 1989 coup that installed an Islamist-backed regime.

Prior to the coup, Sudan was home to more than 60 cinemas, including 16 in Khartoum that often screened films from Hollywood and Bollywood.

Today, after years of economic hardships and government restrictions on importing foreign films, just three cinemas operate in Khartoum.

German film-maker Katharina von Schroeder, who is helping Jadallah to digitise Jubara’s collection, said watching his work was like taking a journey into the past.

“There were lot more enterprises and factories at that time, a lot more night clubs,” she told AFP.

“Without any judgement, it was a different place,” she said as she showed footage from Jubara’s collection.

In one commercial, a young Jadallah is seen dressed in a red top and a skirt.

Danced

In another clip, Sudanese couples in Western clothes danced at an late evening open-air party — something rare in today’s Sudan.

“There is no conflict between religion and cinema,” said Jadallah, “but some extremists reject cinema without even understanding it.”

“If you don’t have cinema, you don’t have a voice,” she said.

Over his five-decade career, Jubara produced more than 100 hours of film.

LOS ANGELES:

Jim Jarmusch’s “Paterson” will hit theaters at the end of 2016, Variety has learned.

Amazon Studios is backing the indie drama and is partnering with Bleecker Street on the film’s release. The film will get a platform release, expanding its theatrical footprint gradually. It will debut LOS ANGELES, July 26, (RTRS): “One Piece Film: Gold,” the thirteenth entry in the popular anime series about the adventures of the rubber-bodied Monkey D. Luffy and his pirate crew, debuted atop the Japanese box office for the weekend of July 23-24.

Distributed by Toei on 739 screens nationwide, the film earned $10.9 million on 821,000 admissions. This was 15% down on the opening of the previous, “One Piece Film: Z,” in 2012. Even so, its opening day total of $6.4 million on 479,000 admissions was the highest of any film released this year.

Last week’s number one, Disney’s “Finding Dory,” fell to second place while “Pokemon the Movie: Volcanion and the Exquisite Magearna” held onto to third, boosted by the uproar over the Pokemon Go game’s arrival in Japan on July 22.

Digitising them is an enormous job. Around 40 hours have been processed so far, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.

The project has received backing from a German foundation, the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art, and the German embassy in Khartoum.

“It was definitely worth saving this heritage... and Sara had this wish to preserve her father’s legacy,” said Schroeder.

The processing was done in Berlin. Jadallah was initially hesitant to hand over rare footage.

“I could understand that... in films as opposed to digital, you just have one copy and there’s nothing you can do if it’s gone,” said Schroeder.

“As far as I know this is the only private film archive for 15 and 35 mm materials in Sudan,” she said.

Tayeb Mahdi, director of a Khartoum-based film school, said the project was a fitting tribute to Jubara.

“This government doesn’t care about cinema, while the private sector is disinterested,” he said.

“Despite this, Jubara kept on making films.”

For Jadallah, preserving her father’s legacy is a gift to Sudan.

“I feel sad when I remember my father witnessing his studio being demolished... I feel sad when there is no cinema,” she said, wiping away tears.

“I want to preserve his films, because Sudan’s future generations should see their country’s history.”

on Dec 28, which allows it to qualify for awards. That’s a busy time of year, one that will also see the launches of Oscar contenders such as “Toni Erdmann,” an acclaimed German comedy, and “Patriot’s Day,” a drama about the Boston Marathon bombing.

“Paterson” centers on a bus driver (Adam Driver of “Girls” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”), following him on his daily routine, as he ferries passengers around the city of Paterson, New Jersey. All the while, the driver, who is also named Paterson, channels his observations into poetry, scratching out his writing in a notebook that he carries. Golshifteh Farahani (“Rosewater”) co-stars as Paterson’s supportive wife, who champions his writing.

“Paterson” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, garnering Jarmusch some of the strongest reviews of his career.

In the A.V. Club, Mike D’Angelo praised the film’s mild mannered nature, writing, “The heart of the film lies precisely in its ordinariness, which Jarmusch somehow makes transcendent through repetition, point of view, and poetry.”

Jarmusch’s past films include “Down by Law,” “Broken Flowers,” and “Mystery Train.”

For the past year, Amazon has been very active in the indie space, releasing the likes of Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society” and Nicolas Winding Refn’s “The Neon Demon.” Amazon is planning to push “Paterson” for Oscars. It won’t be the only Amazon release with an awards season campaign. “Cafe Society” could get some awards love, particularly for its screenplay and Vittorio Storaro’s lush cinematography. (RTRS)