The Dislocation of Amber

Filmed in the city of Suakin, a formerly flourishing port in Sudan, the film observes a place now reduced to ruins, a shadow of its former self. Shariffe uses symbols – scorpions, seashells and camel caravans – to accentuate a sense of utter desertion. He interweaves an artistic tapestry using visual imagery, symbols, abstraction and the melodic voice of the late Sudanese singer Abdel-Aziz Dawoud.
“Only faint traces of its ancient affluence are apparent today … a dimmed reflection in a cracked mirror; empty eyes with the stars in a different house, laughter in another room.” (Hussein Shariffe, 1974)
The film is presented as a new digital restoration, which was overseen by the Cimatheque – Alternative Film Center in Cairo, in 2025.

Sudanese filmmaker, painter and poet Hussein Shariffe (1934–2005) began his career as a painter, studying and working in London in the late 1950s and early 1960s. After a decade of lecturing and exhibiting in Sudan and internationally he turned to filmmaking, working at Sudan’s State Cinema Corporation and later heading the Film Section of the Department of Culture. Forced into exile in Cairo in the late 1980s, Shariffe continued his film practice and co-directed Diary in Exile (1993) with Egyptian filmmaker Atteyat Al Abnoudy. Until his death in 2005, he worked on the poetic, unfinished film essay Of Dust and Rubies.

Director Hussein Shariffe. Cinematography Abdel Moneim Aladawy. Editing Allan Ballard. Production company Sudan Department of Culture (Sudan).

Films: 1973: The Throwing of Fire. 1975: The Dislocation of Amber. 1979: Tigers Are Better Looking (co-directed by Atteyat Al Abnoudy). 1993: Diary In Exile.