EXCLUSIVE: Suzannah Mirghani’s Cotton Queen, widely recognised as the first narrative feature film directed by a female Sudanese director, has been picked up by T A P E Collective for UK-Ireland theatrical release from Totem Films.
Mirghani’s feature debut world premiered at Venice Critics’ Week 2025 and has enjoyed a festival run, including winning best feature film at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and the audience award at the inaugural Doha Film Festival 2025.
The film is set in a cotton-farming village in Sudan, where teenage Nafisa is raised on heroic tales of battling British colonisers told by her grandmother, the village matriarch Al-Sit. When a young businessman arrives from abroad with a new development plan and genetically engineered cotton, Nafisa becomes the centre of a power play to determine the future of the village.
The feature is adapted from Mirghani’s 2020 short Al-Sit, and stars Mihad Murtada, Rabha Mohamed Mahmoud, Talaat Fareed, Haram Bisheer, Hassan Kassala and Fatma Farid.
“Suzannah’s Al-Sit has remained in my mind since I first saw it in 2020,” said T A P E’s co-founder and managing director Isra Al Kassi. “The response was unlike anything I’d seen for a short film at the time and I’m thrilled that Suzannah stayed with the fearless characters and her vision.”
Cotton Queen is produced by Caroline Daube for Germany’s Strange Bird with Didar Domehri for France’s Maneki Films. Co-producers include Palestine 36 filmmaker Annemarie Jacir and Ossama Bawardi of Palestine’s Philistine Film, Jessica Khoury and Mohamed Hefzy of Egypt’s Film Clinic and Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab of Egypt’s Mad Solutions.
London-based T A P E recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, working across exhibition and distribution to platform the works of global majority filmmakers. The company has previously acquired Sofia Alaoui’s Animalia and Hind Meddeb’s Sudan, Remember Us from Totem.
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