Cotton Queen (عروسة القطن)
Qumra Projects
Suzannah Mirghani / Feature Narrative / Sudan, Qatar / Colour
In Arabic
Genres: Coming of age
Rated: This film has not been rated.
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Synopsis
In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, 15-year-old Nafisa lives a simple life, picking cotton with her friends, crushing on a village boy, and learning from her grandmother Al-Sit, the respected village matriarch. The arrival of Nadir, a young Sudanese businessman from abroad, threatens to change their way of life. Nafisa’s parents are excited to arrange her marriage to Nadir, but Al-Sit has other plans. Because no one has asked Nafisa’s opinion about her own future, the teenager decides to take things into her own hands.
About the Director
Suzannah Mirghani is a Sudanese-Russian writer, researcher, and media studies/museum studies graduate. Her short film ‘Al-Sit’ (2020), screening on Netflix Middle East, won the Canal+ Award at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival in 2021, among other prizes. Suzannah's recent short films include ‘Virtual Voice’ (2021, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival) and the short documentary ‘Kamala Ibrahim Ishag: States of Oneness’ (2022), commissioned by the Serpentine Galleries. Her poem Some Behavioural Characteristics of the Sudanese Honey Bee (Apis mellifera sudanensis) was published in the Black SWANA issue of Mizna (Vol. 23, No. 2, 2023). At the development stage, her first feature, ‘Cotton Queen’ (2025), won the ArteKino Award at L’Atelier de la Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.
Credits
- Director
- Suzannah Mirghani
- Screenwriter
- Suzannah Mirghani