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VOA story on Ezra - a film about child soldiers

Both text and video versions of the story are available at the Voice of America site.

From the story:

"Ezra also remembers nothing about the night in which his rebel faction attacked his own village, an attack in which his parents were killed and his sister gravely injured. Much of the film is about the human relationships of the child soldiers, despite their brutalization. Ezra's sister is loyal to him despite her knowledge that he was among the attacking rebels. Ezra also falls in love and marries a girl soldier, eventually trying to flee the country with her and his sister.

The cast includes Sierra Leoneans, Ugandans, Rwandans and Malians, as well as European and Americans of African descent. Most had not acted before, and two had actually been child soldiers. The director, who says the story is based on the Sierra Leone conflict, interviewed a number of child soldiers before he wrote his screenplay. They became a major source, he says, “especially three kids that I met that let me into their souls, so to speak. I met a lot of children, but a lot of them would tell me about exterior things, but not about what was going on in the inside."

Read the rest here.

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