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Civil War (4)
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Is My Story Hurting You?David Homel 2007 52 minThis documentary by David Homel journeys across the ravaged landscape of the Balkans after the forgotten wars of the nineties that destroyed Yugoslavia. Vladimir Jovic is a Bosnian Serb psychiatrist who saw the break-up of his country and the end of Slobodan Milosevic's dictatorship. Today he treats his many compatriots who have been traumatized by their country's past. This story of an exemplary man delves into the aftermath of a barbarity that has marked people for life. From the battlefields to the psychiatrist's couch, Is My Story Hurting You? provides a disturbing look behind the scenes of history, where truth and lies overlap and evil terrifies but also fascinates. By piecing together memories, the film becomes a kind of therapy itself and a liberating force. In the end, resiliency wins out and life carries on. -
The PeacekeepersPaul Cowan 2005 1 h 23 minIn this documentary, Paul Cowan delivers unprecedented access to the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping, and the determined and often desperate manoeuvres to avert another Rwandan disaster, this time in the Democratic Republic of Congo (the DRC). The film cuts back and forth between the United Nations headquarters in New York and events on the ground in the DRC. We are with the peacekeepers in the 'Crisis Room' as they balance the risk of loss of life on the ground with the enormous sums of money required from uncertain donor countries. We are with UN troops as the northeast Congo erupts and the future of the DRC, if not all of central Africa, hangs in the balance. As Secretary General Kofi Annan tells the General Assembly at the conclusion of The Peacekeepers: "History is a harsh judge. The world will not forgive us if we do nothing." Whether the world's peacekeeper did enough remains to be seen.
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Shock WavesPierre Mignault 2007 52 minIn the Democratic Republic of Congo, murder, rape, armed conflict and the looting of civilians by the military are daily facts of life. In this huge country where chaos and corruption reign, the journalists of Radio Okapi risk their lives every day to expose the abuses of power to which the Congolese people are subjected. This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in our world today.
Shooting in danger zones still in the grip of rebellion the filmmakers follow the work of several journalists from this free, UN-backed radio station. Taking us up the Congo River and deep into the equatorial jungle, they capture with a hidden camera a reporter's confrontation with unscrupulous soldiers who practise extortion and torture. Another reporter journeys east to cover a new outbreak of the rebellion and returns with harrowing testimony by victims of rape and destruction. Elsewhere, after denouncing the chief of police, another journalist barely escapes reprisal by a death squad. All across the country, Radio Okapi's national network of reporters takes enormous risks to put the truth on the air.
Shock Waves is a hard-hitting documentary that denounces the crimes committed by armed thugs in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It also paints an unforgettable picture of an independent radio and its courageous journalists, who are aware that they are making history.
Shot in a land where silence is imposed at gunpoint, Shock Waves provides riveting testimony to the difficult birth of freedom of expression and democracy in a country torn apart in the aftermath of war. -
WaitingMarie-Claude Harvey 1996 32 minThis short documentary zooms in on the Dinka population of Alek, South Sudan, during a period of famine. The Dinkas are an extremely patient people. With empty stomachs, they await the next harvest. For the last 40 years, an intermittent state of civil war has divided the country in 2. This time, the population has requested aid. Sacks of grain are dropped from planes, but to prevent rioting, distribution is delayed until the arrival of reinforcements. During this week of waiting, we witness the true face of hunger.
