Film Festival event: A Conversation About Darfur

[bcholmes]

So, my other film turned out not to be a film. It was a panel discussion with various people involved with Darfur Now. It was a good panel discussion, and I enjoyed it a lot. One question that really resonated with me was this. A woman asked if the wide release of Darfur Now was going to make it dangerous for some of the Darfurians depicted in the film. Ted Braun, the director responded, describing that this was a concern for him. He outlined the efforts that he'd gone through to help ensure safety of the group, and how he still keeps tabs on them. And then he said that when he met with them, they told him that they were prepared to die to ensure that their stories got told. As he said, "That wasn't a message I was ready to hear."

He said, his voice audibly affected, that all of his life he'd worked with stories, but none of those stories had the same life-or-death quality. I couldn't help but be reminded of the people I'd met in Haiti. They're not living in the brush, learning to use AK47s, but they know that they're targets. And they do what they do anyway.