US Department of State – Africa Bureau Film Series

Search for Common Ground recently began working with the State Department's Africa Bureau, supplying films from the CG Series, for screenings for State Department employees. The following films were screened as a part of this ongoing collaboration:

Films Screened

Pray the Devil Back to Hell Image

Pray the Devil Back to Hell –is the gripping account of a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades-old civil war.  The women's historic yet unsung achievement finds voice in a narrative that intersperses contemporary interviews, archival images, and scenes of present-day Liberia together to recount the experiences and memories of the women who were instrumental in bringing lasting peace to their country.

War Child Image War Child – an award-winning documentary directed by C. Karim Chrobog, chronicles the tumultuous, shocking, inspiring, and ultimately hopeful odyssey of Emmanuel Jal. A former child soldier of Sudan's brutal civil war, he is now an emerging international hip hop star sharing a message of peace for his war-torn land and beloved Africa.

War Dance Image

War Dance – Since the 1980's, Uganda has been in a state of civil war, with the nation's leadership violently contested by a revolutionary force known as the Lord's Resistance Army (or L.R.A.). The fighting is fiercest in the North of Uganda, and there the L.R.A. recruit many of their soldiers by abducting children from refugee camps and homes in the poverty-stricken villages, where electricity and running water are still luxuries known only to a few. However, in the village of Patongo, located deep in Uganda's war zone, a group of students (many of whom escaped from the clutches of the L.R.A.) struggles to rise above the violence and desperation that surrounds them. Each year, a student music festival is held in Kampala, Uganda's capitol city, in which children from around the country compete for prizes in performing traditional music and dance. When the students of the Patongo Primary School are invited to compete for the first time, the children are both thrilled at their opportunity and determined to prove that in a place of violence and want, creativity and talent can still take root. War Dance is a documentary about the Patongo Primary School's long journey to the Kampala Music Festival and the experiences, both good and bad, which informed them.

*Coming Soon*

This is My Africa Image

This Is My Africa – is an award-winning documentary film. Directed and produced by Zina Saro-Wiwa, this film is a unique journey into an Africa that many may not know about. This Is My Africa was created to improve the way the world sees Africa by weaving together the personal memories, tastes and experiences of 20 London-based Africans and Africaphiles, the film has been described as a 50-minute crash course in African culture.

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Search for Common Ground
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