No Simple Way Home. A documentary about the liberation of South Sudan

Invited by writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga, South Sudanese director Akuol de Mabior, one of the youngest talents of African Cinema, presents her debut documentary film No Simple Way Home, about the liberation of a country and the weight of a family legacy.

Between 1983 and 2005, Sudan was the battleground of Africa’s longest civil war. Six years later, South Sudan was independent but civil war once against irrupted in the new country. In 2018, a fragile peace was negotiated and it was only then that the South Sudanese director Akuol de Mabior, born in exile as daughter of one of the nation’s founding families, was able to experience the place her parents had always called home.

Premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and a prize winner at the International Film Festival Amsterdam, No Simple Way Home (2022), is a documentary in which Akual de Mabior combines family biography with her account of the liberation of South Sudan, exploring personal and collective fears as her story unfolds. What does it mean to call a country “home” when you have grown up in exile? What is left of the bright promises of liberation when you are faced with a country that must be constructed in a future full of uncertainty?

No Simple Way Home, 85 min, 2022