• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Ezr a
presents
Ezr a
By:Newton I. Aduaka
 
Ezr a
Ezr a
Festivals and Awards
Grand Prize - 2007FESPACO, OuagadougouAudience Award - 2007Milan African, Asian and Latin American Film FestivalOfficial Selection and World Premiere - 2007Sundance Film FestivalInternational Critics Week - 2007Cannes Film Festival
 
Ezr a
Ezr a
Synopsis
Ezra is the first film to give an African perspective on the disturbing newphenomenon of child soldiers in the continent's recent civil wars. It was awardedthe Grand Prize at the 2007 Festival Panafricain du Cinema à Ouagadougou(FESPACO), Africa's largest and most prestigious film event, and was selectedfor the International Critics Week at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Ezra is not adramatic recreation or a political history of Sierra Leone's decade-long civilstrife, but a remarkably complex psychological study, of one child soldier - howhe was brutalized and how he might begin to heal. Ezra stands out among otherrecent African films because of this focus on character development, not just asthe key to the continent's' thousands of traumatized former child soldiers andtheir difficult reintegration into society, but also to reconstructing these societiesthemselves.The film is organized around the week-long questioning of a 16 year old boy,Ezra, before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in the wake of the civilwar. This hearing is then inter-cut with chronological flashbacks to pivotalmoments during Ezra's ten years living and fighting with a rebel faction. Thecommissions, based on the idea of transitional justice and modeled on the onein South Africa, were meant to be not punitive but restorative, therapeutic forthose whose human rights have been violated but also for the violatorsthemselves. Ezra is in deep denial and clearly suffering from Post-TraumaticStress Disorder (PTSD). Only once Ezra admits his crimes, realizes how hecame to commit them and repents for the suffering he has caused, will he beready to rejoin society and make peace with himself.
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...