Nov 17-21: the devil came on horseback

The new program is out for the VIFC VanCity Theatre, with this Darfur documentary up soon. Curiously enough, it also becomes available on DVD at Videomatica Nov 20.

I don't know that I'm going to be able to bring myself to watch it: a couple years ago, I got quite pulverized / almost paralyzed over Africa (do they call it compassion fatigue? faith fatigue? I don't know), mixed in with other things, and since that I haven't managed to watch SHOOTING DOGS or
SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL or
SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL or
THE LOST BOYS OF SUDAN or
GOD GREW TIRED OF US or
DARFUR NOW (onscreen at Tinseltown
or any of the other guided tours of misery. In the long run, not an acceptable response, I know: in the short run, it has seemed necessary. But maybe we're past the short run and it's time for me to crawl out from under that particular rock? At the risk of being driven further underneath? Not sure yet.

Over at A&F, Jeffrey Overstreet calls HORSEBACK "the Next Film About Which I Am Going to Be Unrelentingly Passionate. ... This may be the film I recommend most highly for 2007. It is extraordinary." He saw it as part of the 2007 City Of The Angels Film Festival, with its theme "Justice... For All?", where they also screened BELLA, THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT, NORMA RAE, UNFORGIVEN, WATER, INVISIBLES and WHAT WOULD JESUS BUY?. (What, no Al Pacino?)

Anyhow, on to the movie...

THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK
November 17-19, 21 // 7:00, 8:45

USA 2006 // Directors: Annie Sundberg, Ricki Stern // 85 min // DigiBeta

VANCOUVER PREMIERE! VANCITY THEATRE EXCLUSIVE

Brutal, urgent, devastating—the documentary The Devil Came on Horseback demands to be seen as soon as possible and by as many viewers as possible. An up-close, acutely painful call to action, the movie pivots on a young American, a former Marine captain named Brian Steidle, who for six months beginning in the fall of 2004 worked for the African Union as an unarmed monitor in Darfur. What he saw in Darfur was unspeakable. And then he returned home, his arms, heart and head filled with the images of the dead. You see a lot of those images in The Devil Came on Horseback , which, in brute form, serves as a catalogue of human barbarism…At least 200,000 civilians have died, and millions have been displaced. The atrocities—rape, torture, mutilation, murder—seem endless. So too does Mr. Steidle's storehouse of graphic photographs and his documentation, which he took with him when he returned to the United States and began sharing with anyone who would pay attention… The Devil Came on Horseback is a heartfelt account of what this particular American witness saw and, just as important, what he did afterward. It's necessary, often agonizing viewing.”—Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

This film is not rated. No Children under 18.