The Dislocation of Amber

Forum Expanded 2026

*** We regret to inform you that the film The Dislocation of Amber will not be screened as part of the Forum Expanded programme. Cimatheque - Alternative Film Center, along with the families the directors, have decided to withdraw it from the festival. ***
Filmed in the city of Suakin, a formerly flourishing port in Sudan, the film observes a place now reduced to ruins, a shadow of its former self. Shariffe uses symbols – scorpions, seashells and camel caravans – to accentuate a sense of utter desertion. He interweaves an artistic tapestry using visual imagery, symbols, abstraction and the melodic voice of the late Sudanese singer Abdel-Aziz Dawoud.
“Only faint traces of its ancient affluence are apparent today … a dimmed reflection in a cracked mirror; empty eyes with the stars in a different house, laughter in another room.” (Hussein Shariffe, 1974)
The film is presented as a new digital restoration, which was overseen by the Cimatheque – Alternative Film Center in Cairo in 2025.

by Hussein Shariffe (Director) Sudan 1975 Arabic 32' Documentary form

Crew

Director	Hussein Shariffe
Cinematography	Abdel Moneim Aladawy
Editing	Allan Ballard

Produced by

Sudan Department of Culture

Sudan

Hussein Shariffe

Sudanese filmmaker, painter and poet Hussein Shariffe (1934–2005) began his career as a painter, studying and working in London in the late 1950s and early 1960s. After a decade of lecturing and exhibiting in Sudan and internationally, he turned to filmmaking, working at Sudan’s State Cinema Corporation and later heading the Film Section of the Department of Culture. Forced into exile in Cairo in the late 1980s, Shariffe continued his film practice and co-directed Diary in Exile (1993) with Egyptian filmmaker Atteyat Al Abnoudy. Until his death in 2005, he worked on the poetic, unfinished film essay Of Dust and Rubies.

Filmography (selection)

1973 The Throwing of Fire 1975 The Dislocation of Amber; Forum Expanded 2026 1979 Tigers Are Better Looking; co-directed by Atteyat Al Abnoudy 1993 Diary In Exile

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2026