Cotton Queen
Spring Grants 2022 - Production Stage
Suzannah Mirghani / Feature Narrative / Palestine, Germany, France, Qatar / 90 min / Original Language: Arabic / Interests: Drama
Synopsis
In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, 15-year-old Nafisa lives a simple life, picking cotton with her friends, falling in love with a village boy, and learning from her grandmother Al-Sit, the formidable village matriarch and matchmaker.
The arrival of Nadir, a young Sudanese businessman from abroad, threatens to change their way of life with a new farming technology. Nafisa’s parents are excited to arrange her marriage to Nadir, but Al-Sit has the final decision about Nafisa’s future, including when to be circumcised and who to marry. Torn between the demands of her family and her emerging desire for independence, Nafisa is forced to negotiate between modernity and tradition in a defiant drive for personal choice. Neither she nor her village will ever be the same again.
Credits
- Director
- Suzannah Mirghani
- Screenwriter
- Suzannah Mirghani
- Producer
- Annemarie Jacir, Caroline Daube, Didar Domehri, Ossama Bawardi
- Production Company
- Philistine Films
About the Director
Suzannah Mirghani is a writer, researcher, and independent filmmaker. She is a media studies and museum studies graduate. Mixed-race Sudanese and Russian, she is interested in stories about the complexity of identity. Suzannah is the writer, director, and producer of 'Al-Sit'(2020, Sudan/Qatar), which won the Canal+ Award at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (2021), as well as 6 Academy Award qualifying prizes: Best Narrative Short at New Orleans Film Festival (2021); Best of Fest at LA Shorts (2021); the Grand Prix at Tampere Film Festival (2021); Best Short Film at BronzeLens (2021); Best Live Action Short at AFI Fest (2021); and Best Live Action Short at Interfilm Berlin (2021). Her latest short is the experimental 'Virtual Voice' (2021), which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival.