Cannes Khartoum Drama ‘Goodbye Julia’ Proves Breakout B.O. Success In Egypt As Sudanese Expats Flock To Screenings
Mohamed Kordofani’s Khartoum-set drama Goodbye Julia made history at Cannes earlier this year as the first Sudanese feature to play in the festival across its 76 editions.
Six months on, the film is achieving a new first at the Egyptian box office.
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The drama took the top slot on its opening day on October 25 on just nine screens, ahead of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which was on its second week on release on around 25 screens.
Widening out to some 25 screens, Goodbye Julia drew 13,135 spectators for a gross of $33,650 in its first week, according to locally collated figures.
By comparison, Killers of the Flower Moon went on to take $41,000 in the same week, for a total Egyptian gross of $102,000 by the end of its second week on release.
As of November 6, Goodbye Julia had grossed $56,637 in total.
Exploring the events leading up the 2011 schism between Sudan’s southern and northern populations, Goodbye Julia world premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard and has since been submitted as Sudan’s entry for the Best International Feature Film Oscar.
Its Cannes landmark screening was bittersweet in that it followed in the wake of the outbreak in fighting between rival generals in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum in April, which has since forced more than one million people to flee to neighboring countries and displaced another 3.4 million internally.
Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab at Cairo-based MAD Solutions, which is overseeing the Egyptian release and world sales, told Deadline that the film had set a new record in terms of revenue and the number of theaters screening it for a non-Egyptian and non-American film.
They noted that around 70% of the spectators were Sudanese nationals living in Egypt.
Neighboring Sudan and Egypt traditionally have close ties, with the latter country home to a permanent population of around four million people of Sudanese origin prior to the flighting, with around 250,000 refugees arriving in the country since April.
Goodbye Julia had been due to hit the international MENA film festival circuit last month with screenings at El Gouna, Carthage and the Palestine Cinema Days, until the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict caused these film festivals to cancel there 2023 editions.
The feature will now make its Arab international festival debut at the Marrakech International Film Festival in late November.
The drama is set for a wide theatrical release soon across the Arab world, including the Gulf countries, and will also launch in France on November 8 via ARP Sélection. It has previously screened in 30 festivals worldwide, including Karlovy Vary, BFI London, Melbourne, Vancouver, Warsaw, and most recently Chicago, where it won the Roger Ebert Award.
Goodbye Julia stars Eiman Yousif, former Ms South Sudan Siran Riak, Nazar Goma, and U.S.-Sudanese actor Ger Duany.
It is written and directed by Kordofani and produced by Station Films, the production house of filmmaker Amjad Abu Alala, whose You Will Die At Twenty was Sudan’s first first-ever Oscar submission.
Mohamed Al-Omda, who co-produced Yemen’s Berlin International Film Festival selection The Burdened, Yemen’s official entry to the Academy Awards this year, is also among the producers.
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