Join The Mosaic Rooms for our third Sofa Cinema event, a rare screening of Hussein Shariffe‘s experimental short films The Dislocation of Amber and Tigers are Better Looking. 

The Dislocation of Amber was filmed in the city of Suakin, a formerly flourishing port in Sudan, now in ruins. Its history is one of famine and opulence, devastation and progress, rich trade and damage, and colonialism. Shariffe used symbols to accentuate a sense of desertion and alienation hinted at in the title. This surreal masterpiece of Sudanese cinema features poems sung by the late Sudanese singer Abdel-Aziz Dawoud.

Sudan | 1975 | 32 min | Arabic with English subtitles.

Tigers are Better Looking is an adaptation of a short story by Jean Rhys. In the film, Shariffe directs his view towards exile in Europe, showing the wide disparity between North and South. The film contrasts two different civilisations, the homeland, Sudan, and the country of exile, Great Britain. Through poetic abstractions the director manages to portray the strong sense of exile and the longing for the homeland.

Sudan | 1979 | 20 min | English

How to watch:

Follow this link and enter the password: sofacinemaMR03
The password will only work on the weekend of 18-19 April 2020.

Hussein Shariffe (1934-2005) was one of the most renowned Sudanese artists. The painter and filmmaker graduated in Fine Arts from the Slade School of Art and from the National Film School in the UK. He oversaw the cinema section in Sudan’s Department of Culture in the 1970s where he began working on his first cinematographic projects as a director. In his films, Shariffe takes an experimental approach to the documentary form, capturing unique stories that focus on the socio-political and cultural context in Sudan as well as on the experience of exile.

Image: Stills from The Dislocation of Amber. Courtesy of Dr Eiman Hussein