Ezra /

Ezra is the first film to give an African perspective on the disturbing phenomenon of abducting child soldiers into the continent's recent civil wars. It was awarded the Grand Prize at the 2007 Festival Panafricain du Cinema à Ouagadougou (FESPACO), Africa's largest and most prestigious fi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Online Access: Full text (MCPHS users only)
Other Authors: Aduaka, Newton I. (Director), Loro, Michel (Producer), Aprikian, Gorune (Producer)
Format: Electronic Video
Language:English
Published: San Francisco, CA : California Newsreel, 2007
Subjects:

MARC

LEADER 00000cgm a2200000 i 4500
001 in00000072595
006 m o c
007 cr |n||||||||a
007 vz |za|z|
008 170912s2007 cau105 e o vueng d
005 20240625140133.1
035 |a (VaAlASP)ASP3644051/marc 
035 |a (OCoLC)1009101743 
035 |a (OCoLC)on1009101743 
040 |a ALSTP  |b eng  |e rda  |e pn  |c ALSTP  |d OCLCO  |d OCLCF  |d OCLCQ  |d INT  |d OCLCO  |d WYU  |d S9I  |d CAUOI  |d OCLCO  |d UPM  |d OCL  |d OCLCO  |d OCL  |d OCLCO  |d OCLCQ  |d OCLCL  |d OCLCQ 
043 |a f-sl--- 
082 0 4 |a 791.4372  |q OCoLC 
245 0 0 |a Ezra /  |c California Newsreel presents ; un film de Newton I. Aduaka ; production déléguée cinefacto Michel Loro & Gorune Aprikian. 
264 1 |a San Francisco, CA :  |b California Newsreel,  |c 2007. 
300 |a 1 online resource (105 min.) 
306 |a 014516 
336 |a two-dimensional moving image  |b tdi  |2 rdacontent 
337 |a computer  |b c  |2 rdamedia 
337 |a video  |b v  |2 rdamedia 
338 |a online resource  |b cr  |2 rdacarrier 
347 |a data file  |2 rda 
380 |a Videorecording 
500 |a Title from resource description page (viewed September 12, 2017). 
511 1 |a Mamoudu Turay Kamara, Mariame N'Diaye, Mamusu Kallon, Richard Gant, Mercy Ojelade, Emile Abossolo-Mbo, Merveille Lukeba, Abubakarr Karim Sawaneh, Ilario Bisi-Pedro, Cleophas Kabasiita, Wale Ojo, Yao Yankey Yankson. 
520 |a Ezra is the first film to give an African perspective on the disturbing phenomenon of abducting child soldiers into the continent's recent civil wars. It was awarded the Grand Prize at the 2007 Festival Panafricain du Cinema à Ouagadougou (FESPACO), Africa's largest and most prestigious film event, and was selected for the International Critics Week at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Ezra stands out among other African films because it is a complex psychological study, not just of the brutalizing, healing and reintegration into society of one of thousands of traumatized former child soldiers, but also as a key for reconstructing these societies themselves. Ezra is structured around the week-long questioning of a 16 year old boy, Ezra, before a version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created in Sierra Leone in 2002 in the wake of its decade long civil war. This hearing is then inter-cut with chronological flashbacks to pivotal moments during Ezra's ten years in the rebel faction which made him who he is. These commissions, based on the idea of transitional justice and modeled on the one in South Africa, were meant not to be punitive but restorative and therapeutic, both for the violated and the violators. Only after Ezra confronts his crimes, how he came to commit them and repents, will he be ready to rejoin society as well as make peace with himself. In a sense, the audience is placed in the position of the judges, initially seeing Ezra only in terms of his crimes against humanity, but, gradually coming to realize he is more a victim than a victimizer. The 16 year old Ezra who appears before the tribunal is an unsympathetic, angry, deeply disturbed young man. He takes no responsibility for the atrocities he committed, rationalizing that he was a soldier, and soldiers kill, so why should he be brought before the Commission? He falls back on political justifications, arguing that he was just a fighter for equality and against corruption in Sierra Leone. He is in such deep denial about his past crimes that he suffers from amnesia; some might label him as suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. The film begins, however, by showing us another Ezra, a carefree six year old on his way to school on a calm summer morning, July 13, 1992. Just as class begins, the quiet erupts into mayhem, as a squad of insurgents, firing machine guns, bursts into the schoolyard and randomly kidnaps a dozen children, including Ezra. When one boy begins to cry, he is shot without a second thought, further terrorizing the children. They immediately set out on an exhausting, day and night, forced march, swallowed up by the dense, disorienting jungle, until they reach the distant rebel camp. There they confront the intimidating warlord, Rufus, who, like any effective totalitarian, immediately begins to strip them of their old identities to impose a new one on them. He orders them to forget their past, forget religion, forget their families: from now on the Brotherhood is their only family, they are reborn as warriors, to fight and die for the cause. He rallies them to destroy the corrupt governing elite which had, in fact, colluded with Western diamond interests for thirty years to steal the nation's vast wealth from its impoverished people. The story then skips forward; Ezra is now a teenager, armed with an AK 47, the leader of a rebel battalion, totally immersed in the culture of the Brotherhood, his peers substituting for his family, as gangs do in our own inner cities. The government has called an election and the rebels have declared anyone who votes an 'enemy of the people.' Their slogan, 'No Hands, No Vote, ' gave rise to one of the most heinous and distinctive crimes of Sierra Leone's civil war: the mass amputation of people's hands. On January 6, 1999, Ezra's battalion is ordered to attack and exterminate three villages. Each soldier is injected with methamphetamines and they begin a ruthless, four-day rampage, their brains exploding. 
546 |a In English. 
586 |a Won 2007 Amiens International Film Festival, Audience Award, Best Film 
586 |a Won 2007 Amiens International Film Festival, Golden Unicorn, Best Film 
586 |a Won 2007 Durban International Film Festival, Feature Film Competition 
586 |a Won 2007 Granada Film Festival Cines del Sur, Best Director, Newton I. Aduaka 
586 |a Won 2007 Ouagadougou Panafrican Film and Television Festival, Grand Prize - Etalon de Yennega, Newton I. Aduaka 
586 |a Won 2007 Ouagadougou Panafrican Film and Television Festival, INALCO Award, Newton I. Aduaka 
586 |a Won 2007 Ouagadougou Panafrican Film and Television Festival, UNFPA Award, Newton I. Aduaka 
650 0 |a Child soldiers  |z Sierra Leone. 
650 0 |a Truth commissions  |z Sierra Leone. 
651 0 |a Sierra Leone  |x History  |y Civil War, 1991-2002. 
655 7 |a Feature films.  |2 lcgft 
655 7 |a Fiction films.  |2 lcgft 
700 1 |a Aduaka, Newton I.,  |e director. 
700 1 |a Loro, Michel,  |e producer. 
700 1 |a Aprikian, Gorune,  |e producer. 
710 2 |a California Newsreel (Firm),  |e presenter,  |e production company. 
758 |i has work:  |a Ezra (Motion picture) (MovingImage)  |1 https://id.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39PCG98phw3FFhXWTJdTDcYrm  |4 https://id.oclc.org/worldcat/ontology/hasWork 
852 |b E-Media  |h Alexander Street Press 
856 4 0 |u https://ezproxymcp.flo.org/login?url=https://www.aspresolver.com/aspresolver.asp?MARC;3644051  |z Full text (MCPHS users only)  |t 0 
936 |a BATCHLOAD 
938 |a Alexander Street  |b ALSP  |n ASP3644051/marc 
938 |a Alexander Street  |b ALSP  |n ASP3644051 
947 |a FLO  |x avon 
999 f f |s d58563fa-947a-4b09-8c57-49b9e1f7278c  |i 256f6d23-2a30-4762-b7dc-4a4e4960cbca  |t 0 
952 f f |a Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences  |b Online  |c Online  |d E-Media  |t 0  |e Alexander Street Press  |h Other scheme 
856 4 0 |t 0  |u https://ezproxymcp.flo.org/login?url=https://www.aspresolver.com/aspresolver.asp?MARC;3644051  |y Full text (MCPHS users only)