War, patriarchal structures, and the absence of an established local film industry couldn’t hold Suzannah Mirghani back from realizing her first feature film which is a special kind of debut: the first fiction feature from Sudan directed by a woman and only the second Sudanese feature production to screen at the Venice Film Festival. From there Cotton Queen went on a prestigious festival journey, earning prizes at Thessaloniki, Geneva, Doha, and Luxor. The nuanced story of a Sudanese teenage girl’s emancipation against the backdrop of her village’s complicated past and uncertain future is now in German cinemas. During its screening at the Arabic Film Festival Berlin, the Sudanese-Russian filmmaker spoke with Lidanoir about the Sudanese war’s impact on the production, overcoming moral skepticism about young women acting, and the return of colonialist capitalism in a globalized world.