Highly recommended as a sobering companion piece to Hollywood's relatively-sanitized version of the same subject-matter in Blood Diamond.
The Empire in Africa (2006)
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Reviews Counted:9
Fresh:6
Rotten:3
Average Rating:6.3/10
Theatrical Release:Dec 8, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: The story of the civil war in Sierra Leone is discussed at length in this thought-provoking documentary about the region.
Director: Philippe Diaz
Director: Philippe Diaz
Studio: Cinema Libre
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Reviews for The Empire in Africa
There are images in "The Empire in Africa" that I wish I'd never seen, but it's worth enduring them to hear a side of the story that the media and Hollywood overlooked.
Diaz refuses to accept received wisdom about the RUF's savagery, and it clearly took more than one revolutionary movement to reduce Sierra Leone to abject poverty.
That Empire lacks clear-cut heroes and villains is not necessarily a fault, but the movie's muddle too often comes across as an attempt to avoid assigning responsibility where it belongs.
Philippe Diaz's tumultuous documentary is a noble but failed attempt to explicate the tragedy of Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war.
It’s possible that Diaz’s sympathy for the RUF is symptomatic of a lingering tendency on the left to sanctify anything that calls itself a revolutionary front.
Absolutely powerful indictment of imperialist greed in Sierra Leone. Reveals the hypocrisy of "humanitarian" interventions.
Filmmaker Philippe Diaz makes a strong case for blaming the international community in general, and the United Nations in particular, for the needless protraction of a conflict that left 70,000 dead and millions displaced.
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