How Michaela Coel Pulled Off Her TIFF Tribute To Sudan, With An Entire Team Of Sudanese Women

“Sudanese women have been on the frontlines of every revolution in Sudan—2019 was even called a women’s revolution. I’m inspired by their resilience and determination, and wanted to pay tribute to them and help give their stories a platform for recognition,” Michaela Coel told Vogue on Monday after the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) premiere of The Christophers. On TIFF’s international stage, where the industry converges on Hollywood North and kicks off the unofficial start of awards season, Coel wasn’t vying for awards recognition or trying to drum up Oscar buzz. She was using her platform to shed light on the devastating atrocities in Sudan, in which 12 million people have been displaced, 150,000 (likely many more) have been killed, and the region is facing mass starvation caused by the ongoing civil war.

Joined by a team of Sudanese women, hand-picked by Coel and her friend, Ebaa Elmelik, co-founder of Media for Justice in Sudan, the multi-hyphenate pulled off the ultimate GRWM with intention. And Toronto-based Sudanese photographer Nabra Badr was there to document it all. Badr’s work is rooted in her Sudanese heritage, and as her bio reads, her “work goes beyond aesthetics, creating visuals that not only look beautiful but also resonate deeply.” Two days after Coel’s TIFF premiere look did exactly what she had hoped — make people stop scrolling and dedicate their timelines to learning more about what’s happening in Sudan — Badr and I got on the phone to talk about how the moment came together, what it was like to be in the room with Coel as she honored Sudanese women, and why the team was adamant that the photos had to be exceptional. Coel wanted them to be so good that Vogue would have no choice but to splash them everywhere. Featuring never-before-seen outtakes from the day, here’s how they pulled it off.

Nabra Badr: It was a really quick turnover. I got a DM from the agency that's working with her on the movie, The Christophers; they messaged me on Saturday and said that Michaela [had] requested to have me shoot this project that she's working on. 

NB: I've never had any contact with her. When I saw the DM, I was kind of taken aback. And I'm a huge fan of her work so I was like I don't know if this is a real DM [laughs]. I was at work as well so I was like, okay, let me get my bearings together. I told them that I was interested and they were like, ‘Okay, great. We'll get back to you with the details.’ Then they followed up and said that it was actually [Michaela] herself trying to push for [the shoot] to become a Vogue article. It just was surprise after surprise. They let me know that they needed it for the next day. So I got the DM Saturday and ended up meeting up with them on Sunday. 

NB: I wasn't aware that she was even interested in showcasing the story of Sudan. It was more so that I always knew that she was socially conscious and she utilizes her platform to talk about things that she really cares about. And actually it wasn't until I met her in person that I learned she was really, really passionate about it. She actually told me that she's worn a traditional Sudanese garment, the toub, to the White House, and that gained some traction previously. After that happened, she said she wanted to do it again. With TIFF and her premiere, she had a lot more time to make it happen. I'm always willing to do anything in connection to Sudan. It informs my personal work. Even if this wasn't someone in the public eye, but it was going to get eyes on it, period, I would do it. I was ready to take that on.

NB: Sudanese storytelling is often neglected, and the issues that happen in Sudan are kind of placed on the back burner, mainly because people think the problems that are arising in the country are insular and that there's no way they can help. In reality, it's not complicated. The people of Sudan just want to be able to live in a democratic environment and not risk their lives every single day, and especially back in 2019 when the revolution first started, it was spearheaded by a lot of Sudanese women. We saw a lot of Sudanese imagery featuring women at the forefront. Since then, anytime I have an opportunity to shoot with Sudanese women, especially my elders, I take it.

Unfortunately, during COVID, I had a lot of female figures in my family pass away, and it just made me realize that time is of the essence, and I only have this opportunity to be around my elders and my ancestors for so long that I want to be able to document it and share their stories and share how they feel about Sudan and what their aspirations are. I have spent more time outside of the beauty and the fashion stuff that I usually do to be able to just document the people around me and my community members. It informs me by me picking up the camera more often when I can.

NB: Michaela's friend Ebaa [Elmelik, co-founder of Media for Justice in Sudan], was also the person who put everybody together. They were pretty adamant about trying to feature as many Sudanese women as possible. Her henna artist was Sudanese, the jewelry designer was Sudanese. They even got an older Sudanese lady to come in and teach her how to tie the toub. I communicated with Ebaa and what we wanted was really just capturing Michaela while she was getting dressed, but also making sure that I'm capturing details of the [Sudanese] aunt putting the garments on and the details of how she's passing on this information to Michaela and everybody in the room, just making sure that we're doing everything correctly. 

There were a lot of conversations around, oh, is this appropriate for this particular instance? There were a few jewelry pieces that are typically reserved for certain situations, like bridal wear [in Sudan]. And we were going back and forth. Maybe Michaela puts it on, maybe she doesn’t. But then it just came to a consensus from both her and everybody else in the room that if it's not authentic to what the day is, then we're not going to do it. So if it’s something that would be reserved for brides, then we're going to take that away. It was a lot of having really authentic conversations and bouncing off of each other — what works and what doesn't work — and making sure that I'm capturing every aspect of the outfit. It's not just the toub but the hair piece, the jewelry, the henna that she had done before she even came to Toronto for the festival, by a South Sudanese artist in London. And there was just so much attention to detail about how that henna looked on her hands, and how the henna looked on her feet, and making sure that I was also getting those aspects of it. Because each detail is really important to the outfit as a whole.

NB: I didn't have as much conversation around the color choice of the garment, but I could definitely see why that was intentionally done. She did have a lot of conversations around the fact she was making sure to include [certain pieces] because West Sudan is the is currently the one in the most crisis, or she would say, ‘I want to make sure I’m amplifying these specific voices’ so I could definitely see why she made that particular choice, especially because a lot of traditional Sudanese toubs that are worn on an everyday basis, or to a special gathering, are usually super colorful and bright. So for her to choose something that's not shimmery and not super textured, and go with something that's very plain and a very specific color, it was a more modern take on the toub, from my perspective. It’s like bringing the toub to the everyday person. 

NB: Not specifically. But there was so much conversation [around], ‘Guys, we have to get these pictures done as well as possible and get as much traction as possible, because we don't want them to pull the photos. When I was approached, I was told that Vogue was okay with iPhone photos, and [Michaela] wanted to reach out to me on her own accord, like, no, let's get a Sudanese photographer in. Let's make these pictures as amazing as possible, so that they don't have any reason to not use them, or to not go ahead with this article. Let's push them to like the pictures so much that they'll put them on their social feed and they'll put them on their story, just pushing to get eyes on Sudan and just making sure we're utilizing our platform to the best of our abilities. From my understanding, she just wanted to utilize Vogue in particular because she knows how big of a platform it is. 

NB: I would say that it's kind of threaded through all my work., I'm a Black Muslim girl who doesn't have any links to the fashion industry, doesn't have any links to the photography industry, it's really been a breaking of the wall, like the glass ceiling at every single stage possible. And I have always been pretty vocal about my personal beliefs and that I'm not willing to conform just so I can get the job, because at the end of the day my belief system and my moral system just says, Oh, this is just not worth it. I feel like the ability to be able to use fashion and art and all these things is just a more digestible way for people to understand and maybe get connected to it. I've grown up with the Teen Vogues [and], I remember reading these stories that were super impactful, but then they were always complimented by beautiful images. I was like, oh, okay, it's possible for us to have these nuanced conversations, but then at the same time, we're utilizing art to make a statement. 

NB: My respect for her has gone up tenfold. I truly did not get a sense that it was a performative act. She genuinely wants to learn about Sudan. When I first came into the room, she greeted me with a Sudanese greeting. She's like, ‘I know it. I know how to do it!’ And it was just so charming. And she had a whole Sudanese playlist. Ebaa, who put everything together, is also her friend, and has been informing her on a lot of the issues, and she genuinely cares. When I first got introduced to this project, I thought maybe the movie was about Sudan, and so that's how we were trying to relate. None of this has anything to do with Sudan. She just saw an opportunity to be able to be like, ‘Oh, I'm going to this big, huge premiere that I'm doing, and at the same time, I can do this activism at the same time.’ People will see it and they want to do more research so now they know.

I think that was really exciting. I just kept telling her, ‘this is so important.’ So many people would shy away and feel uncomfortable because they don't want to burn any bridges or ruin any relationships, but she’s willing to go above and beyond. That's someone I really respect. I would say that she's great at what she does in her artistry, but she also just has this incredible ability to empathize with other people, be compassionate, and utilize her platform for good, which you don't always see nowadays because a lot of people fear backlash.