Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Invisible Children revealed in film

Documentary on Ugandan child soldiers a work in progress
invisible-children

What: Invisible Children

Where: HUB Film and Internet Lounge

When: Saturday, July 16, 8 p.m.

Admission: By donation

An independent film documenting the plight of Ugandan child soldiers is screening in Whistler this Saturday evening.

Invisible Children tells the story of youngsters in Northern UgandaÕs Acholi region caught up in the conflict between the Ugandan government and the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), a violent insurgency led by Joseph Kony that kidnaps Acholi children en masse to work as soldiers and sex slaves.

The conflict has forced many Acholi families into rural displacement camps, where the children are easy targets for LRA kidnappers. The resulting situation sees thousands of children forced to "commute" to nearby towns nightly in order to avoid the LRA by sleeping in public places, and leaves them vulnerable to ambush and exploitation.

Invisible Children was produced by a trio from Southern California Ð Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole Ð who were in their early 20s and admittedly na•ve when they traveled to Sudan in June 2003 with the intention of producing a film on the persecution of the Christian church.

When border conflicts stranded them in Uganda, they turned their lens on the Acholi children, and shifted their focus to a story their Western-conditioned minds could barely believe.

The footage resulted in Invisible Children, a "rough cut" film, approximately 55 minutes long, which was first screened in June 2004 and since then has maintained a grassroots promotional campaign encouraging independent screenings to raise awareness of the Acholi situation and collect funding for aid projects in Northern Uganda.

The filmmakers have since returned to Uganda, and are collecting footage to complete Invisible Children as a feature-length documentary, aiming for a theatre release in December 2006.

The showing of Invisible Children this Saturday evening at HUB Internet and Film Lounge in Creekside has been arranged by Whistler resident Nicole Mourant, who says she heard about the film through a friend in California. The film will screen at 9 p.m. with admission by donation.

For more information go to www.invisiblechildren.com or contact Mourant at 604-902-3232.