Abstract
Self shot film for network foreign affairs series about the liberation of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This film formed part of a ten programme run of the Channel 4 series ‘Unreported World’, a strand which I co-created, edited for a period and subsequently commissioned. The Democratic Republic of Congo and its child soldiers were a long-standing foreign affairs interest. To that extent therefore this is a film I wanted to make.
I set up the filming and shot and directed the material myself. I found the key character – Henri Ladyi – and worked with him and his team to develop narrative sequences that would highlight his work liberating child soldiers. I directed Aidan Hartley through each of his interviews and pieces to camera. I also structured the final narrative (supervising the edit) and wrote the transmission script.
This was original research conducted ‘on the road’. Where previously former child soldiers had been interviewed in children’s homes or under the auspices of NGOs, this was the first film to go into the conflict zones of eastern Congo, located child soldiers ‘in the field’ and then follow the process of their release and return. This was a process – only hinted at in the film itself – which required long journeys into uncharted forest and involved some personal risk (risks mitigated by security procedures of which I, as a former series editor, was the author).
The film was extensively previewed and reviewed in the national press.
This film formed part of a ten programme run of the Channel 4 series ‘Unreported World’, a strand which I co-created, edited for a period and subsequently commissioned. The Democratic Republic of Congo and its child soldiers were a long-standing foreign affairs interest. To that extent therefore this is a film I wanted to make.
I set up the filming and shot and directed the material myself. I found the key character – Henri Ladyi – and worked with him and his team to develop narrative sequences that would highlight his work liberating child soldiers. I directed Aidan Hartley through each of his interviews and pieces to camera. I also structured the final narrative (supervising the edit) and wrote the transmission script.
This was original research conducted ‘on the road’. Where previously former child soldiers had been interviewed in children’s homes or under the auspices of NGOs, this was the first film to go into the conflict zones of eastern Congo, located child soldiers ‘in the field’ and then follow the process of their release and return. This was a process – only hinted at in the film itself – which required long journeys into uncharted forest and involved some personal risk (risks mitigated by security procedures of which I, as a former series editor, was the author).
The film was extensively previewed and reviewed in the national press.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Place of Publication | London |
| Publisher | Channel Four |
| Edition | Unreported World |
| Media of output | Television Programme |
| Size | Network Broadcaster |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2011 |
Keywords
- Foreign Affairs, Congo, Child soldiers