WE ARE HERE TO INSPIRE YOU
Our Story
THIS IS A DOCUMENTARY PROJECT WHICH STARTED 2015 BY DIRECTOR IBRAHIM MURSAL. FOLLOWING THE SUDANESE ARTIST AHMED UMAR.
After coming to Norway as a refugee, Ahmed Umar has become a renowned artist. Proud of his roots, his art mixes Sudanese and western influences.
In 2015, he came out as gay on Facebook, making him the first openly gay man from Sudan, this causes a massive outrage in the Sudanese community.
Although the 30-year dictatorship fell by revolution in 2019, homosexuality is still punishable by death in Sudan. Still, Ahmed takes a chance and goes back to Sudan to see his mother again.
Norway isn’t without dangers for openly gay immigrants either. During a Pride parade, Ahmed is badly beaten up because of his flamboyant attitude.
In “The Art of Sin”, director Ibrahim Mursal has to face his own deeply ingrained prejudice while following Ahmed’s journey. With a deeply religious background, he struggles with his own cultural concept of masculinity.
“The Art of Sin” is a journey spanning worlds and cultures, art and religion, national identities, genders and love.
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Our Team
IBRAHIM MURSAL
Director
For Sudanese - Somalian - Norwegian director Ibrahim Mursal, this film is more than four years of asking and thinking through cross cultural questions.
"I was going through a mini identity crisis. I was born in Norway to Somali parents; my religious family left for Sudan in the late 90's. There I received top class religious education and graduated as an oil engineer before pursuing my true passion: filmmaking.
In 2013, I decided to come back to Norway. In Norway, my years of conservative upbringing met one of the most liberal and secular societies in existence. Being away from the common religious dogma I hid behind in Sudan; I found myself having to answer some hard questions. One of the them: What do I think of homosexuality? This was the start of this story and the film "The Art of Sin".
AbdElrahim Kattab
EDITOR
Abdelrahim Kattab is an award winning film editor based in Doha, Qatar. He has been editing professionally since 2013, his compositions range from documentaries, narrative films, TVCs, corporate films and creating engaging social media content.
Kattab’s story telling methodology is unique and versatile, discovering stories and shaping narratives into coherent engaging pieces. Kattab have been helping us from the very start of this project, both as a camera operator, editor and sound operator. Most important he have been following this project through years and different edition of the film. Without him we would never been able to create such film that we did manage at last.
ERLAND EDENHOLM
EDITOR
Erland Edenholm is a Swedish director and editor based in Oslo, Norway. He have been working with film and TV since early 1990 and got a long track record from several documentaries. He was the guy who did help us put the final elements of the puzzle together. His dedication to this project and a vision of how we should finalize the storytelling, did help us to create the final film "The Art of Sin"
HALSTEIN LARSEN
Sound Designer
A musician, sound operator and sound designer based out in the wilderness in southeast Norway. He have been creating gold out of nothing. We did bring him quite different samples of sound bites from iPhone, sound recorders and professional camera. We have to say it have not been easy to create the sound design we did finalize in the mix. Thanks to passion for sound and problem solving we did manage it at last. We are proud of what we now can bring to the big movie theatres and festival screenings through out the world.
KIM KROHN BERLE
Cinematographer
An athlete, even once upon a time actor and forever a dedicated filmmaker. Kim Krohn Berle is experience as DoP and 1st AC on several TV-serials, commercial and movies in Norway. He was the one who did help us to lift the visual value of this film to something extra also giving us the understanding of the art and impact of Ahmed Umar´s work as an artist
Geir Bergersen
Producer
A publisher, producer and former journalist and TV-reporter. He have been working with this project from the start when director Ibrahim Mursal did pitch the idea in 2015. Based by the sea of Skagerak close between the coast of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, he have been building this project step by step. Through the years he have also learned more about the proud tradition of Sudanese film industry, and the passion for storytelling that bring this story together..