Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(from the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival)
Director: Virginia "Gini" Reticker
Starring: Leymah Ghowee, Etweda "Sugars" Cooper, Vaiba Flomo, Asatu Kenneth, Janet Johnson-Bryant, Etty Weah
Liberia, already the subject of an amazing documentary about the strength and smarts of its female leaders (Bahamas International Film Festival prizewinner Iron Ladies of Liberia), now receives passionate portrait from producer Abigail E. Disney and helmer Reticker. Pray the Devil Back to Hell has small subtitles but leaves a large legacy to the role these mothers and sisters played in Liberia's now relatively peaceful existence.
Liberia, given to the blacks as compensation for their prior period of hell, was always supposed to have been a promised land - and to have celebrated the freedom of those formerly enslaved. Instead, as is unfortunately too often the case, the land's occupants were not only enslaved by their circumstances, but their lives endangered by the civil war that saw limbs mauled by machetes, armed children set in packs against their parents, and brutal rape as a rite of existence.
Like Iron Ladies, this doc focuses on the women of Liberia who've struggled, fought and led Liberia to a hopeful future, uniting to free their fate from Charles Taylor, the tyrant who terrorized the country for a decade prior to his being charged for war crimes by the International Court. By taking to the fish market, and then to various African cities to publicize their plight, 2,500+ women, Christians alongside Muslims (many of whom were denying their husbands sex until the situation had ended), created a catalyst for action toward a solution to the slaughter. The power of the African mother to force sons and brothers to disarm when the United Nations peacekeepers fail to protect the people they're mandated to provide for, is astonishing.
With renewed peace, but a tiny population and massive debt, the question raised by one of the talking heads during the course of events seems to hold water still... "Now what?" Named "Best Documentary Feature" at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell screens at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival (click for times and ticket information). Festival runs April 23-May 4.
Image courtesy of Fork Films Productions |
