Graig MantleFor two hours, Chumash Auditorium played host Monday to the conflict that rages in Sudan’s Darfur region. It is a conflict in which the country’s government is systematically bombing and attacking the remote villages of Darfur to wipe out the native African tribes. Sundanese President Omar al-Bashir and his administration fund and supply roving militia bands known as Janjaweed who kill, torture and rape civilians.
Cal Poly students received a glimpse of the victims and people affected by the violence via the film “Message From Home.” One of the films’s three directors, Aisha Bain, was on hand to answer questions and inform students about the Darfur situation.
For her own part, Bain headed out to Sudan in early 2004 with her coworkers Jen Marlowe and Adam Shapiro with the goal of making a film that could expose the atrocities being committed in the poor African nation to the world.
“We wanted to give the people of Darfur a voice,” Bain said. “There were no internationals in it, and it was purposely done so that they could have a way to communicate to the rest of the world. They all took a risk talking on camera. Some of them have been kidnapped, some of them have fled for their lives because the Sudanese government is now hunting them down for having talked.
“They took the risk because they were so certain that if people heard their stories, if people saw what they were going through, help would come and unfortunately that was three years ago,” she said.
Bain and her team crossed over the border into Sudan from Chad, a move that could have landed them in jail or worse. They met up with the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), a revolutionary group based in northern Darfur that is fighting against the current regime in power.
“They’re the only ones with cars,” Bain said. “They know how to get around, they know where all the displaced peoples are. They’re horribly outnumbered.”
What comes through in the film is a picture of pain that is easily seen on the faces of both the young and old. In one scene, a 10-year-old boy displays for the camera drawings he made of the destruction of his home village. Stoically, he tells the filmmakers that his father was killed in the chaos.
Another scene from the film captures the silent hurt that the young volunteers of the SLA, some of them newly orphaned, are experiencing as they recount how they were the small handful of villagers to survive Janjaweed attacks and government bombings.
Bain says that even during filming, her team was in danger of being caught up in the airborne raids.
“We never really considered it or thought about it,” she said. “We never really realized how dangerous some of the threats were. These planes flying overhead . people went into hiding and they were so scared and we didn’t understand. A week later the very village we were in shooting was bombed.”
Other challenges faced the trio as well.
“In terms of logistics we had to bring everything with us,” Bain said. “We had to travel light. There’s no electricity in Darfur, there’s no generators, nothing. Once the battery ran out, the film ran out. We tried to charge a battery once in a car battery and we opened the hood and it was scary enough because it was held together by rubber bands and it was this crazy contraption and we were like, ‘what the hell do these cars drive on?'”
After many weeks in the Sudanese outback, the team headed back to America to put together their footage. Since the fall of 2004, “Message From Home” has been screened all over the world, including at the United Nations and before Congress in Washington, D.C.
The documentary is not narrated; it is simply a video record of the troubles and thoughts of the inhabitants of Darfur as they attempt to cope with a ubiquitous brutality in their lives. “Message From Home” is informative for those who don’t understand the details of the Sudanese conflict, and beyond that it is captivating with its raw atmosphere. Further information on the film and the Darfur conflict can be found at darfurdiaries.org.