Reporting the devastation, forced displacement, and genocide in Darfur should be a story with daily coverage. The mere mention of the word "Darfur" should set off a passionate exchange, or at least the question, "What can be done?" Unfortunately, the people of Darfur struggle with a problem common to so many victimized by geopolitical realities: how to overcome the willful indifference of powerful government and media interests who find their story unimportant or merely inconvenient.
With images and first-hand accounts, filmmaker Mark Brecke shares his experience of the Darfur crisis with Amtrak train passengers journeying eastward on a three day trip to Washington D.C. Their reactions, interwoven with hard facts and expert opinion, raise the central questions in They Turned Our Desert Into Fire: why does the public not understand the severity of this crisis, and how can the world continue to do nothing?
In addition to the film and a slideshow of Brecke's photographs, this DVD also contains the short film War as a Second Language (27 min, 2002). Mark Brecke culled from 15 years of newsreels, documentaries, and raw footage of the Vietnam War to create an audio track which he then juxtaposed with moving and still images he shot in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1995. Tourists replace soldiers and the audio design becomes a haunting and evocative narrative about the history and legacies of war.
“One of the best films I have seen all year.”
— Sara Carden, Producer, CNN International / Inside Africa
“The most sincere film on Darfur today.”
— Jennifer Clibbon, Producer, CBC News, Our World
SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDSAddis International Film Festival, Ethiopia, 2010
Santa Cruz Film Festival, CA, 2009
National Geographic Theater, Washington DC, 2009
South American Seminar on Promotion of Equality, Bahia, Brazil, 2009
Official Selection, Sarasota Film Festival, 2008
Global Peace Film Festival, 2008
Best Feature, Human Rights, Artivist Film Festival, 2008
BendFilm, 2008
Best Documentary, São Paulo International Film Festival, 2007