SPECIAL SCREENING OF SHANE BAUER’S FILM ABOUT DARFUR

Special Screening of Songs to Enemies and Deserts

Free the Hikers, in conjunction with MN Film Arts, are hosting a special screening of this documentary created by Shane Bauer and David Martinez. Songs to Enemies and Deserts is a work of art created by Shane and David about the people of Darfur and their pursuit of a peaceful community. Please join us!!

• DATE: October 23, 2010
• TIME: 1:30 PM (35 minutes in length)
• PLACE: St Anthony Main
• ADDRESS: 115 SE Main St, Minneapolis, MN 55414
• COST: $12 ($8 Students)
• FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE
• DOWNLOAD PDF FLYER
• EVENT PAGE ON MAIN FREE THE HIKERS SITE

This documentary is about an area of Sudan that is controlled by two factions of armed rebels. It is about the daily lives of the farmers and herders who live there as they interact with the rebels who try and hold the forces of the Janjaweed and the Sudanese army at bay.

INTERVIEW WITH DAVID & SHANE FOR CURRENT TV ABOUT THE FILM:

This is a short news piece that Current TV did about Songs to Enemies and Deserts. Shane is on the viewer’s right and his co-director, David Martinez is on the left.

SHANE BAUER ON MAKING THE FILM, REPUBLISHED FROM HIS WEBSITE:

Songs to Enemies and Deserts:

A Film About The Rebels Of Darfur

From the mountains of Jebel Marra in central Darfur a ragged group of rebels swept down onto Sudanese military bases in 2003, routing the government’s soldiers and making off with rifles, artillery, and vehicles. The Sudan Liberation Army had scored its first victory, and no one could predict what would follow. Instead of taking on the rebels directly, the Khartoum government sent bombers and horse mounted militias to murder and terrorize Darfuri civilians. The ensuing horrors were documented by the international news media and the world’s outcry was part of the reason that the attacks subsided, at least temporarily. With the government murdering the civilian population to quell the rebellion, the rebels became the civilians’ only protection force.

Who are these men and why did they begin fighting in the first place, and what part do they play in the ongoing situation that is Darfur? Their demands are widely supported by the civilian population: they want roads and schools, clean water, health care, and representation in their country’s despotic government, controlled by an elite that has ruled from the country’s northern region since the Sudanese gained independence from the British in 1956.

David Martinez and I wanted to understand these rebels’ world, their motivations, their histories, who they were and why they fought. We felt that in all of the attention that Darfur was getting, the Darfuri people themselves were often portrayed as abject victims, with hands outstretched, needing the west to come to their rescue. And yet here were Darfuris who had risen up against a murderous and racist regime, people who were very far from being helpless Africans.

In August 2007 we went and found them in North Darfur, lived with them for five weeks, and shot a movie about them.

ABOUT THE FILM:

Songs To Enemies And Deserts, (35 minutes), NTSC, Color, Filmed on digital video. In Arabic, Zaghawa, and English with English subtitles. Directed by David Martinez and Shane Bauer, photographed by David Martinez, edited by David Martinez, Shane Bauer, and Iona Sidi. Sound mixed by Luis Guerra, Terremoto Studios, New Mexico.

SCENE FROM THE FILM:

Our heartfelt thanks to MN Film Arts for their assistance & to all supporters of Free The Hikers!
Sarah was released September 14, 2010. Shane and Josh remain in detention.
Please show your support for our efforts to release them to their families.
ALL proceeds go to FREE THE HIKERS!