Beats Of The Antonov
The sound of an aircraft flying at mid altitude in pristine blue seems ominous. Wispy clouds dot the air, as the camera tracks to the source of the high pitched drone of engines. It is a strangely familiar noise until we cut to an abandoned building pockmarked with bullet holes. The tension suddenly rises, the sound of the propellers slicing through the air takes on a more ominous tone. The plane comes out of cloud cover and is suddenly in clear focus, a clearly massive four engine behemoth in the sky. We cut to the previously sleepy village, moved to action by the aircraft- “The Antonov! The Antonov! It is coming!” Then the explosions begin.
Next scene, and the same villagers are laughing, and the music takes over. Hajooj Kuka’s award winning Beats Of The Antonov has already began to weave it’s hypnotic magic. Shot in the Blue Nile and Nuba regions of Sudan, this eye opening film is not what you would expect when you are told it is a tale of oppression and conflict. The Focus of Kuka’s film is not the war, but the people who have decided to use the war to find out more about themselves and what it means to be Sudanese.
Sitting in Java at Valley Arcade, Hajooj Kuka is excited about the message of his film. “I lived there for two years, in the refugee camps and in the towns around there,” he explains, bright eyes positively gleaming, “I wanted to give voice to something that has not really been heard.” There is a passion for the project. Kuka, a native Sudanese, speaks with the pride of ownership, of identity. Which, he says, is the main message of the film.
Bees flit around us as we talk. Hajooj brushes them off nonchalantly, now fully focused on getting his message across. “Music is a crucial part of cultural identity. Without their music, these people would be without identity, which is what the ruling class would consider a victory.”
Beats of Antonov is a brilliantly shot movie that never has the contrived feel one can get from similar productions. The inspiration for this movie came one night when Kuka was approached in a camp as he was covering another story, by a young man who took him to a disused classroom where there were two bands on either side of the room, competing for the crowd’s affections. “They had made amplifiers out of tiny radio speakers and used the cables from old bicycle brakes to make the strings for their instruments. They were determined to hold on to their culture.”
Identity is clearly close to Kuka’s heart. Sudanese by birth, he has spent time in Kenya and the United States and realised how important it was, in a diverse society, to embrace your difference. “If people acted in Khartoum the way they act in the refugee camps, then there would be no need for refugee camps,” he says. It is hard to argue with him.
Kuka’s award winning film- it won the 2014 Grolsch People’s Choice Documentary award at the Toronto International Film Festival- is a vivid portrayal of life in Sudan and stark contrasts drive the narrative. As he swigs the last of his Dawa and gets up to leave, he shrugs his shoulders and leaves with this parting comment: “The revolution in Sudan is almost like a Backwards Revolution. The people on the fringes are bringing the change to the people in the centre, the so called intellectuals. Maybe Sudan is setting a new precedent, showing the world how people’s determination to be united, to have a common identity, is more powerful than any force that seeks to destroy it.” Wise words from an East African Filmmaker who is set to call the world his oyster.
Beats Of The Antonov Trailer
