We would like to share the latest work of Mazin Elsadig and
BAMN productions. We co-produced this documentary and provided motion design for it.
Here is a snapshot of the documentary.
Title: Welcome Back
Director: Mazin Elsadig
Story
An ordinary man from Canada returns to Sudan after 21 years of exile. Everything changed.
Background
Elfadil Elsharief is an ordinary man on the surface – he’s got two kids, a wife, a mortgage on a house, and works for the city of Hamilton, Ontario in public health. He lives a pretty standard North American life. His fellow worker at the cubicle next to him would be shocked to find out that he is a human rights advocate, who’s been blacklisted and banned to return to his country.
He was born and bred in a little village in northern Sudan called Aba Island. Being the eldest brother of five siblings, he set the bar high for his relatives in education by ranking ninth academically before graduating high school in the largest country of Africa. Shortly after, he graduated from the University of Khartoum and the government sent him to the
United States to do his master’s degree at Northwestern University. In 1989, while nearly obtaining his long-awaited PhD, a military coup occurred in his country and the blossoming democratic government was toppled. As he constantly criticized the regime from overseas, his tuition funds were cut-off. He wrote scathing articles, challenging the government and disagreed with their Islamic fundamentalist tactics. As a consequent, he was flagged as a ‘’traitor’’ to the country and was not allowed to come back for many years.
On December 1st, 2007, he finally went back and everything changed.
In this moving piece, the audience is a witness to the euphoria and agony of a man’s journey, the state of Sudan, a brief look at the ups and downs of government shifts since Sudan’s independence, and Elfadil’s lifelong pursuit to human rights.
