Global Development: Views from the Center
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January 31, 2007
Ugandan Child Soldiers Film Wins at Sundance
Posted by Todd Moss at 01:08 PM
Our good friends Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine took home the Best Directing in a Documentary award at the Sundance Film Festival this week. War/Dance tells the story of three former child soldiers in northern Uganda, following them through a music competition (watch a clip). CGD was fortunate to get a preview glimpse of the film last year when Sean joined us on a panel, along with Uzo Iweala, author of Beasts of No Nation.
Art forms like film and novels, when done thoughtfully, can even complement the academic research (such as, The Consequences of Child Soldiering, a paper on child soldiers being presented at CGD today) by bringing development issues to a wider audience. To my mind, the best book on the World Bank is no academic paper, but rather Michael Holman’s Last Orders at Harrods.
War/Dance is scheduled for a wider release this fall. Watch this space for info on DC showings.
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Comments
Congratulations for War/Dance and for what I hope is a good sensitive film.
But HEREWITH A WARNING. The media repercussions of Blood Diamond in Sierra Leone, where I have just been, are having serious consequences for the ex-child soldiers. Once the media hear about child soldiers, they want to interview them. When UNICEF explained in S-L that former child soldiers are now integrated back into schools or society, the media say that doesn't matter, proceed to the country and want to follow up the ex's, dishing out twenty dollar bills and getting the kids to retell their stories, thereby setting back in minutes their slowly readjusting psyches and disrupting their newly established links within the school or village. UNICEF summarized it as a tragic and disastrous situation.
Posted by: Richard Jolly at February 7, 2007 06:29 PM