El-Kogali studied performing and visual arts as a graduate student in the UK, and later in the US. On visits to her native Sudan, she travelled widely, collecting her artistic impressions of the country's ethnic and geographic diversity. Following this, her multimedia installation of 2011 ''Nora's Cloth'' was inspired by women in
Khartoum who were producing traditional fabrics with religious or cultural significance. In 2012, El-Kogali became the first student from Sudan at the
Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. Further, she obtained a writing
residency by the
National Swedish Touring Theatre. In 2010, El-Kogali participated in workshops for young Sudanese filmmakers organized by the German cultural centre (
Goethe-Institut) in Sudan. This resulted in her first short documentary film about young Sudanese musicians and their culture titled
In Search of Hip Hop. This film was produced by the
Sudan Film Factory and shown at international film festivals. The 2013 short documentary
The Two Sudans about the recently separated countries of South Sudan and Sudan was presented at the Berlinale talents section of the
Berlin International Film Festival. In this collaborative project, El-Kogali participated along other Sudanese filmmakers such as Alyaa Musa. In her 2019 essay
Art for the Revolution: How Artists Have Changed the Protests in Sudan, she wrote about her own impressions of Sudan's political and social recent history, as well as about the contributions of Sudanese artists such as
Khalid Albaih,
Alaa Satir, Enas Satir and Dar Al-Naim Mubarak to the 2019
Sudanese revolution. In 2020, she wrote the scenario and worked as executive producer of the award-winning short fiction film
A Handful of Dates, based on the short story of the same name by Sudanese writer
Tayeb Salih. This film was presented in official competition at the
Sudan Independent Film Festival and the
Pan African Film Festival 2020 in Los Angeles. The film was presented at the section
Un Certain Regard and won the
Prix de la Liberté (Freedom Prize) at the
2023 Cannes Film Festival. == Filmography ==