The documentary Beats Of The Antonov follows musicians in the restive south, where government bombs rain down on insurgents and civilians alike. Director Hajooj Kuka explains why culture is vital in the fight for survival

The opening scenes of Hajooj Kuka’s film, Beats of the Antonov, are as surreal as they are uplifting. As families scramble for cover against the government’s Antonov bomber planes, which continue their reign of terror on the people of the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan, the unlikely sound of giggling cuts through the drone and crackle of destruction.

“The laughter is always there,” says the documentary’s narrator. “People laugh despite the catastrophe as they realise they are not hurt.”

For Hajooj Kuka, a Sudanese video journalist and filmmaker who divides his time between Kenya and the Nuba Mountains, it was important to show the world that music, dancing and even laughter can still exist in such challenging circumstances.

With access to these remote area severely restricted, Nuba Reports – a media organisation based in the region – is one of the few able gather footage and data on the bombings. It says that in the first half of 2014, nearly 300 bombs were dropped on the Blue Nile region alone by Islamist President Omar al-Bashir’s forces – more than double the number dropped in the previous six months of the three-year campaign against the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement - North (SPLM-N) in the predominantly Christian and Animist regions. Tens of thousands of people are believed to have fled to refugee camps in South Sudan and Ethiopia, escaping the conflict and the threat of starvation.

“In October 2012 I went to document the human rights situation in the refugee camps and war zones,” Kuka said. “After I finished my day job in Yusuf Batil [refugee camp], some of the youth asked us – ‘Do you want to go out?’”



Go out where? Kuka responded. “They took us to an old school, where two bands were having a play-off inside. It was full of young people – it had the feeling of a nightclub. We stayed there for hours. At some point I pulled myself away to go to sleep, but I could hear the music until morning.”

Identity

The experience shaped the film that Kuka went on to shoot throughout 2012 and 2013, which features rare footage from the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile regions, as well as in the refugee camps, where he is accompanied by the musician Alsarah (described by Addis Rumble as “the princess of Nubian pop”).

The film, released in September this year, explores the diverse sounds and musical styles through performances and conversations, as well as the politics of music-making in these regions. “Girls’ music” – music made by ordinary girls which has become a genre in itself – is shown as one form of resistance against the programme of “Arabisation” carried out by Bashir’s regime, which Kuka says touches the core of the present conflict.

“It’s a question of identity. The Sudanese government is trying to institute an Arab Islamic identity that people do not agree with, and which they fight against,” he says.

Unlike other documentaries depicting the wars that Sudan is waging against the many ethnicities and tribes that form its make up, Beats of the Antonov focuses on this fight for identity and culture. There are few scenes showing destruction or death. Instead, with a palpable sense of determination, Kuka shows that a powerful way to fight a war when access to food and weapons is scarce is to fight by singing and dancing.

“What else can we do? The war changes everything,” says one musician in the Yusuf Batil camp.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hajooj Kuka Photograph: Hajooj Kuka

“Music is incredibly important in this fight,” says Kuka. “The best way to battle is to hold on to our character, to pass it on through our music and our dance. For this reason I decided to make a film that was driven by sound, and driven by how alive people are, not by their misery.”



Abandoning a more formal documentary format, the film is assembled from a series of vignettes showing women singing together in the camps, snippets of conversations, girls making up songs together, and late-night parties as the young stay awake and watch the skies for the glitter of the dreaded Antonovs.

“I wanted to make the audience live, for a few minutes, in the way that we live,” says Kuka.



Life goes on, mundane everyday tasks continue, but the threat of sudden and brutal interruption haunts every scene.

“You witness scenes of bombing, but then you have long periods without them, where music and life take prominence. But then the bombs return, and keep on returning and disturbing the flow of the film, in the same way they disrupt our lives.”

Kuka’s camera captures the deafening explosions and the rumbling approach of the planes: the viewer sees images shakily zoomed into the skies, the small aircraft appearing seemingly innocuous until they unload, and Kuka and his camera have to run to safety.

Ownership

Girls’ music takes prominence, and Beats of the Antonov depicts an exciting, live negotiation of cultural freedom for the young women who have been forced to make their homes in the camp. Sung by groups of women, made up as they go along, usually unaccompanied, their singing represents a “true Sudanese identity” he says – one that although not accepted by Khartoum, lives on and migrates across urban capitals and throughout the camps. “The boot is too big for you, my friend” they sing, as young men are driven off to fight against the government forces.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Girls teach Alsarah their songs in the Yusuf Batil refugee camp. Photograph: Hajooj Kuka

Northern critics of Girls’ music argue that it is just a “copy” of Khartoum culture. But as Alsarah says in the film, if this were the case, why aren’t the girls singing Mohammed Wardi’s songs, one of Sudan’s biggest music stars?

“Why do they gather and sing Girls’ music?” Alsarah asks. “Because it’s not the kind of music that demands someone else write a poem, or writes a melody. All of this takes ownership away from the singer. It becomes so detached from you, all you can do is sit and listen. Girls’ music is different.”

What next?

“What’s next for Sudan?” Alsarah asks in the film. “We must realise that the notion of the nation state has failed us. That our concept of patriotism and nationhood is failing us. It’s not working. Maybe it’s time for a bigger umbrella.”



A sense of community and collectivity is strong throughout. Kuka’s camera is often immersed within groups and circles of people – the camera’s view caught up in the haze of dust rising by crowds of stamping and dancing feet. But it’s also a new perspective on a country that has otherwise become known by its violent divisions, and its singular political rhetoric.

“I’m pleased that we managed to capture the speed and richness of life there, which is so often forgotten, or ignored,” he says.