|
December 2003
Vol. X, No. 1
Michael Douglas Hosts Film on Child Soldiers
|
Special Institute screening draws hundreds to film featuring the actor, a UN messenger of peace.
"I don't know how old I am," soft-spoken Abu Bakar Bangura tells Academy Award winning actor Michael Douglas early in the affecting new film Child Soldiers, which explores the impact of combat on children in Sierra Leone. "I was very young when I was taken away from my family," he explains to Douglas. Douglas, a UN peace messenger, came to Washington in early October to present a special screening of the film under the auspices of the Institute. The film is an episode of the 10-part "What's Going On?" series airing on Showtime.
Abu is one of an estimated 300,000 children worldwide who have been conscripted or kidnapped to fight as child soldiers. After being kidnapped by a rebel group, he was tortured, drugged, and forced to commit attrocities. "In the war I was trying not to make wicked things, that's why God saved me," he says.
|
The 30-minute film follows Abu as he searches for his long-lost family. It also features the stories of Swankay, a 17-year-old combat veteran who has become a reporter for the popular African radio show Talking Drums; Fatmata, who was kidnapped at age six when her village was razed and everyone in it except she and one other child murdered; and "T-Boy," an employee of the International Rescue Committee who helps children reunite with their families.
But the crux of the film focuses on Abu, and his dogged quest to return home. After several fruitless searches in one part of the country, he decides to follow one last lead into another region of Sierra Leone. With Michael Douglas in tow, they fly out on a UN helicopter and march for miles along a dusty road from one village to the next, their hopes diminishing. Finally, while waiting to make inquiries of the chief in a remote village, Abu hears a cry of joy. It is his mother.
|
"It's incredible to see Abu in his mother's arms. I'm overwhelmed," says a visibly moved Douglas in the film. "I never expected to see Abu reunited with his family."
Douglas, whose interest in social justice and peace issues dates back to his participation in The China Syndrome in 1979, is one of nine UN messengers of peace appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. "I'm in an enviable position," Douglas acknowledged at the screening. "When I talk about movies I can talk about messages of peace, and infuse them into the entertainment pages."
Sharing the podium with Douglas, Institute board member Holly Burkhalter spoke of the leaps of imagination that such films make possible. "We [in the West] need to be able to imagine a world where children are forced to fight, to understand that there is such a world," she said. "And then we need to take a second leap—to imagine a world in which no child is subject to such horrors."
Other Institute Resources:
