In East Africa, Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior is known as the mother of South Sudan. The country gained independence in 2011 and has been at war for most of its short history. Rebecca’s greatest fear is that her husband, John Garang, along with millions of other South Sudanese people, died in vain. After years in exile, a fragile peace agreement plants the possibility for her to do something about the precarious situation in the country. Meanwhile, Rebecca’s daughter Akuol is struggling to come to terms with what it means to call herself South Sudanese because she was born and raised in exile. She decides to follow her mother from behind the camera, and is forced to come to terms with her own fears. At the heart of the film, No Simple Way Home is an intergenerational conversation that charts their struggle to reconcile family and country. Akuol discovers that her mother’s deepest yearning is for her children and the children of her compatriots to lead meaningful lives at home in South Sudan. But what does it mean to call South Sudan home?
CREW:
Director: Akuol de Mabior
Producer: Sam Soko, Don Edkins, Tiny Mugwe
Cinematographer: Emma Nzioka, Akuol de Mabior
Sound: Josephine Obudo, Edward Ahenda, The Work Room
Production
LBx AFRICA and STEPS in Association with APO, in сo-production with ARTE France
Awards
Panorama Audience Award at Berlin International Film Festival (2022, nominee), Viktor Award at Munich International Documentary Festival (DOK.fest) (2022)
Director
Akuol de Mabior
Akuol de Mabior is South Sudanese and is based in Nairobi, Kenya. She was born on 3rd January 1989 in Havana, Cuba. She has directed four short films: Tomato Soup (2017), Ihlazo (2017), Fall into the Sky (2018) and On the White Nile (2021). Her first three films screened at festivals and events around the world from the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa and the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa to the Pan African Film Festival in America. Believing that the perspectives of African women are undervalued, she aims to create counter-hegemonic stories for the screen that reach African audiences, facilitate our imaginations and encourage us to think differently about ourselves and our futures.Selected Filmography
No Simple Way Home (2022), Africa Direct (2021) 
