Three Sudanese sisters, Hiba Elgizouli, Mai Elgizouli, and Sally Elgizouli, have built a collaborative practice that fuses music, film, and design, drawing on the richness of Sudanese culture to produce visually arresting and sonically adventurous work.
A Zero-Budget Breakthrough
In 2018, a year before Sudan’s revolution, a music video for Hiba’s song “Rival” circulated through Khartoum. The clip showed a young woman in a series of colorful toubs, standing before a light-blue Sudanese house and singing directly into the camera. In one shot, she wore earrings fashioned from bougainvillea flowers; in another, she danced in a pink dress with pink plastic balls swinging from long braids around her waist.
The video was filmed, directed, and produced by Mai, with design by Sally. The project had no budget, relying only on Mai’s response to Hiba’s music, Sally’s visual storytelling instincts, and the sisters’ shared love of creative play.
“It was a difficult time in Sudan; everyone was complaining about bread and queues for fuel,” Sally said. “But we were always inspired,” Hiba added.
Mai obtained a camera from a contact at the Goethe-Institute. During initial test shots, she realized her vision required more. “I needed props and costumes to fill my eyes,” she said. “I was wrapping Hiba with something green when Sally came home, really tired from work. I told her ‘we need you in the music video’ because I knew she could do it better.”
From ‘Rival’ to ‘Bidaya’
Raised by an artistic father, the sisters had merged their creative worlds since childhood. Mai once built a set for one of Hiba’s early YouTube videos, meticulously arranging nail polish and revealing a wardrobe of perfectly folded, color-coded clothes.
“As a family, we went through really challenging times because of economic hardship and when we sought asylum in Egypt,” Sally said. “There was a lot of turbulence, and we were creative during that time. Maybe it was our way to deal with these challenges.”
The resonance of “Rival” pushed the sisters toward a larger project: a video for Hiba’s song “Bidaya” (Arabic for “Beginning”). Written in 2018, the track wrestles with the helplessness and hope felt by many Sudanese youth at the time. They launched a crowdfunding campaign and again relied on the community support that had made “Rival” possible.
The visuals expanded on themes from the earlier video, particularly polka dots and balls, which had become Sally’s signature. She sourced different kinds of balls, wires, and scarves from the market, and enlisted an electrician who became a close friend. The sisters created all the outfits and surrealist imagery themselves.
“Everything was in my sketchbooks, and sometimes I was surprised that it actually looked really artistic,” Sally said. “I had inspiration from my father, an environmentalist. In the last ten years of his art practice, he used to recycle and make masks from trash.”
In the video, Hiba appears as a bride of the Nile, wearing mermaid-like and disco-like costumes. As the youngest, she followed Sally’s styling and Mai’s direction without hesitation. “I never have to criticize Sally,” Hiba said. “When she draws dots on my body, I feel like this is exactly how I want to feel and look right now.” She admitted, however, that feedback on her music is a different matter: “If they tell me to go sit inside a hole, I’ll be like ‘YES,’ but if they judge my music, I’m so sensitive.”
Creative Tensions and Evolution
“Bidaya” became the sisters’ most demanding collaboration, due to the number of additional people required and the pressure of crowdfunded money. “We used to play as sisters and also fight as sisters,” Sally said. Mai recalled being exhausted and stressed, and admitted she was tough with her siblings. Hiba joked about always being on time, prompting Mai to tease, “We’ll fight again.”
Amid challenges such as electricity shortages and the outbreak of an uprising, the video was finally edited in Cairo after their mother evacuated them following the June 3rd Massacre. In Egypt, Mai struggled to find an editor who would respect her vision. “Being female, leading something and having a loud voice, you have to prove yourself for people to get you,” she said.
The sisters have not released a joint project since “Bidaya,” but they continue to work behind the scenes. Hiba is exploring different musical styles, Mai is pursuing an MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media in New York City, and Sally’s fascination with visual storytelling endures.
