Darfur Now was aimed to play a very important part in educating and motivating viewers to get involved in any way possible in bringing the tragic situation in the African land of its namesake to an end. It is a movie that is difficult to watch, but imperative not to turn away from. The documentary is written and directed by Theodore Braun. Running for 98-minutes, it provides crucial facts one must take note while watching the film: Darfur, is a region in western Sudan. About the same size as France, it has a population of six million people and has always been in a critical state since 2003, when non-Arabs staged a rebellion against the Muslim government. With the military forces working together with the Janjaweed (meaning “devils on horseback”), an inhuman and well-planned genocide has taken place and has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, with millions more eliminated. After this introduction, the film focuses on six different characters and their role in the fray. The six are namely Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor who is working hard to gather evidence against the Sudanese government; Adam Sterling, a normal but brash American from California who’s furious with the world’s lack of attention to the crisis, marches a campaign to pass legislation and push companies with plans on Sudan to denudate; Pablo Recalde, an altruistic volunteer of the Wes Darfur World Food Program who strives to save lives; Ahmed Mohammad Abakar, the chief sheikh of a camp dedicated to shelter displaced people in Darfur, tries to assemble his own people; a female revolutionary named Hejewa Adam, who trains to go against the Janjaweed; and author and actor Don Cheadle (George Clooney) uses his prestige to boost the public’s awareness of the situation. (The Sudanese government, represented by its smug U.N. ambassador, implicates the West as overreacting and has “over-dramatized” the whole thing.) Some of the six characters’ efforts and goals were successful: Sterling had his bill passed, Recalde’s efforts to get food distributed help save lives, and Ocampo finds enough evidence to file charges against a couple of Sudanese government officials (which was to no avail as the Sudanese refuse to surrender them). Classified as a documentary, Darfur Now comes across as being more of a fictional drama, marvelously filmed and edited. But of course, it’s all very real. As spoken by one of the rebels, “We must be patient until the white people come;” which is a painful statement, but unless that does happen, this story will never have a happy ending.
–Sam Graham