Set on the verge of the 2011 independence of South Sudan, Goodbye Julia stages a story of national conflict on a deeply personal scale. Retired singer Mona (Eiman Yousif) is a northern Sudanese Muslim living with her husband in an upper-class district of Khartoum, when an accident and a fateful decision entangles her life with that of Julia (Siran Riak), an impoverished southern Christian woman with a young child. Mona attempts to make amends, but the fragile friendship between the two women is threatened by the class and race divides between them and the growing guilt Mona feels about her deception.

Self-taught director Mohamed Kordofani has delivered an incredibly assured debut feature, the first Sudanese film selected to play in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. Elegant but not simplistic, the lines of Sudanese civil conflict are mapped onto an intimate drama that resonates thanks to powerful performances from its leads and deft restraint— giving a sense of a deeply troubled past without exploiting the pain of the very real people caught up in it. Kordofani has said he makes films for "regular viewers" and with Goodbye Julia he's achieved the feat of telling a formidably complex story with empathy and grace.