More Information About Darfur Diaries Screening and Fundraiser

Description

After decades of oppression, marginalization and increasing violence at the hands of the Sudanese government, the Sudanese Liberation Army in Darfur (the western region of Sudan) took up arms in 2003. The government and allied militias, known as Janjaweed, answered the rebellion with large-scale murder of civilians, mass rapes of women and girls, and destruction of villages—resulting in one of the world’s largest current political and humanitarian crises.

Over 400,000 civilians have died since 2003. Over 2 million people have been displaced inside Darfur or have become refugees outside Darfur. Thousands of villages in Darfur have been burned to the ground.

In October, 2004 a team of three independent filmmakers – Aisha Bain, Jen Marlowe and Adam Shapiro – left for Darfur, Sudan and eastern Chad. After monitoring the worsening political and humanitarian crisis for months and recognizing that the mainstream media offered marginal and inadequate coverage, the team set out with the goal of providing a platform for the people of Darfur (both those displaced inside Darfur and those living in refugee camps in Chad) to speak for themselves about their experiences, their fears, and their hopes for the future. The conflict serves as the ongoing narrative in the film, but the focus is on the people who are living through what has been termed a "genocide." Through the voices of refugees, displaced persons, and in particular women and children, who are always among the most vulnerable in any conflict situation, this film seeks to provide space for the marginalized victims of atrocities to speak and to engage with the world. Additionally, the film probes the history, culture and heritage of Darfur as a means of deepening understanding of the crisis and complicating easily assumed perceptions by which the conflict is often portrayed (such as a matter of race, ethnicity or religion).

The film presents the Darfurians the filmmakers met (refugees and displaced peoples, civilians and fighters resisting the Sudanese government, child soldiers, teachers, students, parents, children and community leaders) as a people with full lives, culture, and heritage--people with homes that they desperately want to return back to, people undergoing traumatic loss but who demonstrate inspiring strength and resilience, and people whose lives, homes, safety and rights deserve to be protected vigilantly as a fundamental human right.

About the Ticket Supplier: HotHouse

The HotHouse Center for International Performance and Exhibition (C.I.P.E.X.) is celebrating its eighteenth year presenting multi-arts events and showcasing high caliber artists from throughout the world. HotHouse believes in the value of progressive cultural programming with a focus on local, national, and international artists whose work would otherwise remain under-recognized and isolated. HotHouse chooses to position themselves at the margin of the mainstream, and seeks to promote the widening of the cultural marketplace in Chicago.