Cotton Queen
Qumra Projects
Suzannah Mirghani / Feature Narrative / Sudan, Germany, France, Palestine, Egypt, Qatar
In Arabic
Genres: Drama
Rated: This film has not been rated.
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Synopsis
In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, teenage Nafisa was raised on her grandmother’s heroic stories of battling British colonisers. When a young Sudanese businessman introduces genetically modified seeds, Nafisa becomes the centre of a power play to determine the future of the village. Inspired by the Cotton Queen fairytale, Nafisa sets out to save the cotton fields—and herself.
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
- Producer
- Caroline Daube
- Co-Producer
- Didar Domehri (Maneki Films), Annemarie Jacir (Philistine Films)
- Production Company
- Strange Bird