Documentary 2: Sliding Liberia

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 21 July, 2008 : - - Sliding Liberia is a film that crosses genres. Conceived of by Stanford filmmaker Britton Caillouette and Stanford PhD student Nicholai Lidow, this surf film/social documentary follows a group of young surfers to Liberia in search of more than perfect waves.

As they travel through the West African country, devastated by decades of brutal civil war, they record the stories of people they meet along the way––people like Alfred, a young boy who became Liberia's first surfer after finding a bodyboard while fleeing from rebels.

Besides rediscovering a world-class point break that could be the best-kept secret in the surfing world, the surfers find something much more important––a way to travel responsibly in the 21st century. Featuring Surfers: Dan Malloy, Crystal Thornburg, and Chris Del Moro. Cinematography by: Dave Homcy.


www.slidingliberia.com

Documentary 1: Women of Liberia

Amnesty International welcomes you to the groundbreaking US film launch and tour of Women of Liberia: Fighting for Peace. In this poignant documentary, directed by two time academy award winning Jonathan Stack and commissioned by Amnesty International, Women of Liberia follows the epic journey of five women from the beginning of the war to reintegration into post-conflict society. This is a fate, which many women associated with the fighting forces in Liberia, will never reach.

Jackie Redd, Monrovia (Liberia)
In 1990, when Jackie was just 13 years old, she was abducted and raped by government soldiers. Soon after being captured, she escaped and discovered that her father had been killed by government soldiers – the same group that had raped her.

As a form of revenge and with few other options, she decided to join the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led at the time by the former Liberian President Charles Taylor. Jackie stayed with the NPFL throughout the first war and then joined the Anti Terrorist Unit, the government’s elite force when Charles Taylor came to power in 1997. She stayed with them until 2002, a year before the second war ended. One of her last roles with Charles Taylor was his personal body guard.

After going through the first DDR process in Liberia (1997), Jackie had little trust the second one would be worthwhile and decided not to participate in it. Jackie stays in close touch with many of the women formally under her command, and every chance she gets, she helps them out and advocates on their behalf.

She now works for the international organization, Search for Common Ground, in Liberia as a radio operator. She has feels blessed to have the opportunity to work with them. Jackie is a single mother with a son who is 18 years old.

Florence Ballah, Voinjama (Lofa County)
At the tender age of 14, separated from her family, Florence and six other women were captured by ULIMO soldiers in Lofa County along the Guinea border. Five of the women including Florence were raped and the remaining two were killed because they refused to be raped. Out of fear and with few other opportunities, Florence stayed with ULIMO as a cook and porter until the first war ended in 1997.

After experiencing the levels of violence that she did, Florence made every effort to stay out of Liberia’s second war which lasted from 1997 to 2003. Since then, Florence has participated in a Liberian organization called National Excombatant Peace Initiative (NEPI), which was set up by and for former fighters associated with the fighting forces to help in reintegration efforts. NEPI participated in the second Liberian disbarment process. They have also been engaged in human rights training of men and women formerly associated with the fighting forces.

Since she joined NEPI, she has been a spokesperson on issues related to women in Liberia. Florence is married with two children and her dream is to become a medical doctor.

French Director Shocks UN With Disturbing Film on Child soldiers

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — French film-maker Jean-Stephane Sauvaire brought the horror of Liberia's civil war to UN headquarters this week with the screening of "Johnny Mad Dog", his brutal portrayal of child soldiering.

Sauvaire's film, which won the Prize of Hope at this year's Cannes film festival, is based on a novel by Congolese writer Emmanuel Dongala about two teens trying to survive civil war in an unnamed African country.

In an interview with AFP, Sauvaire conceded that his film was violent, but said that the gun-toting youngsters in the film, all war veterans, were not traumatized by the experience and rather found acting therapeutic.

He said he wanted audiences to understand what it was like to be a child soldier and to be shocked and moved by the stories in the film.

"How can you do a movie about the war if it's not violent?," he asked.

Tuesday night's screening was sponsored by the office of Radhika Coomaraswamy, the special representative of the UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, Special Court for Sierra Leone prosecutor Steven Rapp and France's UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert.

Ex Child-Soldiers From Liberia Act Out War Trauma in Movie

Click here to see article on Google News (author not listed)

CANNES, France (AFP) — Former child-soldiers from Liberia act out the horror of one of Africa's most murderous recent conflicts in a new film on children forced to go to war, showing this week at the Cannes film festival."Johnny Mad Dog" by French film-maker Jean-Stephane Sauvaire is based on a novel by Congolese writer Emmanuel Dongala, also from a part of Africa where children are given guns.
The film was selected by festival organisers to screen at its parallel Un Certain Regard section grouping movies that are more original or less mainstream than those competing for its top film prize.
"Violence in childhood is a subject that fascinates me," Sauvaire told AFP in an interview. "There is always violence during childhood but it can degenerate and become atrocity."
The 39-year-old film-maker, who in 2003 shot a documentary in Colombia involving teen violence in "Carlitos Medellin", this time chose fiction to shoot the parallel stories of 15-year-old rebel chief Johnny Mad Dog and 13-year-old Laokole, forced to flee the brutality of war.
While the country is not specified in the film, Sauvaire in fact travelled to Liberia where he first chose 15 children, all veterans of war, from 500 to 600 he met.
He then moved into a house in the Liberian capital Monrovia for a year with the children to gain their trust, explain the film, and help the then illiterate group to learn to act.
"I wanted the film to be as realistic as possible, so I needed to make it with children who had fought in battle, and in a country that had known war," he said.
"I didn't want to cheat with a subject that is too painful and violent to be caricatured," he added.
The children, he added, said films such as Hollywood's "Blood Diamond" had failed to encapsulate their war."In the first sequence, an attack in a village, I began to set up the scene but straight away they said 'No let us get set up, we know what to do'".
Sauvaire said he was wary of traumatising the children by re-opening old sores but that theatre was one of the methods used by specialist aid groups to help evacuate bad memories.
"The children changed during the year we spent together," he said. "It appeased them, they were more stable."
"It really became their film. I called them from Cannes and they said 'How's it going with our film?'"
Sauvaire has set up a foundation to continue to help the children -- www.jmdfoundation.org.
Last year, a movie by Nigerian director Newton Aduaka on blood diamonds and child soldiers, "Ezra", won the Golden Stallion at Africa's biggest filmfest in Burkina Faso.