Tribeca Film Festival...

I went to the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend. This was easily my favorite of the four films we saw (why are some "movies" and some "films"?) It is a documentary about the Darfur Crisis told from the point of view of an ex-Marine CPT who was there for quite some time. He and his sister are now activists trying to spur interest and action in the region.
After the movie, the Producers, the brother and sister, and some of the other people who worked on the film were on hand to answer questions. (Q&A sessions are odd when not done at West Point...here, when we ask questions from the audience, we stand up, introduce ourselves, use Sir or Ma'am, and ask our question. At Tribeca, you just sat there and kind of...yelled your question from your seat. It almost felt interregatory, if that's a word).

There were one or two good questions, such as, Why Darfur? What's the difference between getting us to intervene there, or in Chad, or The Congo, or Iraq...why focus on Darfur? Another question I thought was good was, considering soverignty, and the US involvement, for good or ill in Iraq, what can we do?

They had good answers to most of the questions and I came away feeling better off for having seen the movie. One of the reviews I read of the film after it showed at Sundance was, I thought, right on point:

I know this review has focused more on Steidle, his character, his mission and the facts of the Sudan crisis than on the film itself -- primarily because the film itself simply 'presents' Steidle and his character and mission and the facts. The aesthetic arguments against the film I heard in the post-movie chatter of the exit lobby -- it's too long, it's depressing, some of the structure was off -- must, and do, take a backseat to the moral argument presented in it. It's not enough to simply say "never again" to genocide when it is happening over and over and over right now. The Devil Came on Horseback hurts the heart and stirs the soul, because even as I write this, even as you read this, even while this film is perhaps finding its way to a distributor and wending its way slowly to theaters, the killing in the Sudan will go on, and on, and on until someone in power decides that it must stop or until there is no one left to kill.

Here are some links I reccomend you all click to read about the issue and maybe even (for the billionth time I've asked now...) write a letter:

http://www.globalgrassroots.org/

http://www.thedevilcameonhorseback.com/home.html

http://www.1800genocide.com