‘Cotton Queen’ review: Thessaloniki winner is assured debut from Sudanese filmmaker Suzannah Mirghani

Dir/scr: Suzannah Mirghani. Germany/France/Palestine/Egypt/Qatar/Saudi Arabia/Sudan. 2025. 94mins

The way forward for a Sudanese village is inextricably sure to its colonial previous in Cotton Queen. Suzannah Mirghani’s modest debut characteristic confidently blends coming of age drama and historical past lesson as a younger lady finds herself caught between conventional expectations and new potentialities. A pageant journey that started at Venice Critics Week continues to bear fruit with a Greatest Movie win on the Thessaloniki Worldwide Movie Competition. Mirghani’s participating storytelling and a compelling central efficiency from Mihad Murtada ought to permit it to journey additional. 

Confidently blends coming of age drama and historical past lesson

Sudanaese-Russian filmmaker Mirghani is now the primary Sudanese feminine to put in writing and direct a fiction characteristic. Cotton Queen, which expands on her 2020 quick AI-Sit and options most of the unique forged members, additionally gained the ArteKino Award at L’Atelier de la Cinefondation at Cannes in 2022, and builds on Mirghani’s earlier exploration of colonialism, household ties and the lives of Sudanese ladies. 

Nafisa (Mihai Murtada) lives in a small village the place the cotton crop is significant. Mirghani continuously emphasises the sense of group within the village: younger women work collectively choosing cotton, chill out within the cool waters of the Nile and gossip in regards to the future. The lads sit round listening to music. The vivid sunsets and sun-kissed fields lend a timeless high quality to a narrative that’s intentionally faraway from the violent conflicts that proceed to mark Sudan. (Filming passed off in Egypt.)

Nafisa has her coronary heart set on Babiker (Talaat Fareed), a humble farmer who grows onions. But the potential for a life with him is threatened by the expectations positioned on Nafisa by her household. Her battle-scarred grandmother Al-Sit ( Rabha Mohamed Mahmoud) is the chief of the village – often called the ’Cotton Queen’, she is revered as the lady who fought off British rulers to safe the village’s future. She has a survivor’s luxurious of telling tales that no one can problem or refute.

Life within the village modifications with the arrival of Nadir (Hassan Kassala), a smart-suited businessman who has large plans to introduce genetically modified cotton. The ladies of the village regard him as a prize catch for his or her daughters. In lots of respects, it feels as if a colonialist historical past is repeating itself with one other outsider attempting to imagine possession of the land and its riches. Nadir stays in what is understood regionally as ’the English home’, a long-abandoned constructing from the colonialist period full with dusty rooms, four-poster beds and relics of a distinct age.

Mirghani progressively builds a way of the pressures on Nafisa as she realises that her personal needs might be sacrificed for what is taken into account the larger good of the village. Her mom Aisha (Haram Bisheer) and grandmother all have plans that pay little heed to what Nafisa needs.

Mirghani efficiently gives historic context while exploring the motivations of everybody concerned, and the necessity for Nafisa to say her independence. A finely balanced narrative finds the complexity in everybody’s seemingly good intentions. Mahmoud brings an impish allure to Al-Sit, whose velvety method masks the steely maintain she maintains on the village. The previous she has constructed could also be unreliable, however there’s little doubt that the sacrifices she made introduced their rewards.

The movie additionally conveys the best way through which previous and current sit facet by facet within the village. Folks nonetheless imagine within the energy of soothsayers, fortune tellers and highly effective medicines however there’s a additionally a conviction that some practices are finest confined to historical past – particularly feminine genital mutilation.

Murtada’s understated, imposing efficiency appears completely attuned to the challenges confronted by Nafisa as she tries to navigate conflicting calls for and expectations. The pressures on her could also be appreciable, however her quiet willpower to face them down makes for an interesting heroine.