A little bit of historical context helps to understand Goodbye Julia (Wadaean Julia), written and directed by Mohamed Kordofani. Northern Sudan is Muslim and South Sudan is Christian and its people have black skin. For 1,400 years, Northern Arabs exploited Southern blacks as slaves. Goodbye Julia begins in 2005, when an agreement was signed to allow the Southern Sudanese to vote for secession and continues until 2011 when the successful election actually takes place.
Two women are at the heart of the story. Julia (Siran Riak) is a black Christian. At the beginning of the film she, her husband and their child, Daniel (Louis Daniel Ding), are evicted from their home and forced to live with relatives. Mona (Eiman Yousif), an Arab Muslim, on the other hand, is living what appears to be a good life. Her husband, Akram (Nazar Gomaa), runs a carpentry business, and they have a comfortable upper-middle class life. There are undercurrents of unhappiness. They have been unable to produce a child. And Akram forced Julia to give up her job as a successful singer.
One day, Mona is driving home from shopping when her route is blocked because fighting is going on between the aggrieved black Christians and the Arab authorities. Forced to drive through a black neighborhood with which she is not familiar, Julia hits 6-year-old Daniel, who has run into the street to chase a ball. Instead of stopping, Julia continues on her way. Daniel’s father, Santino (Paulino Victor Bol,) runs out and pounds on her car window, demanding that she stop. But she keeps driving. Santino gets on his motorbike and follows her. When they arrive at Mona’s house, Akram sees a black man chasing his wife, pulls out his newly acquired Russian rifle and shoots Santino to death. Because Akram’s neighbor has connections, the case is hushed up. Julia and her family, who didn’t see what happened, have no idea why Santino has disappeared.
Mona does not tell her husband, or anyone else, the real reason a black man was following her, Consumed by guilt, she tries to find out the name of the man her husband killed. Finally, a black policeman tells Mona that, for a price, he can help her by giving her the dead man’s wallet. She finds Santino’s home, learns that Daniel is fully recovered and, without revealing her involvement in Julia’s husband’s death, insinuates herself into Julia’s life, eventually hiring Julia as her maid and allowing Julia and Daniel to live at her home. Initially, Akram does not like a black person living with them, but gradually he takes a liking to Daniel, teaches him carpentry and treats him like the son Julia could not provide for him.
Goodbye Julia is driven by the constant tension of whether Mona can keep her secret, and by the growing friendship of these two very different women. There are some effective twists along the way. However, the film is weakened when Julia falls in love with Majier (Ger Duany), a radical activist for Southern independence and the story becomes too much a vehicle for revenge.
