Browse Films

Reflecting growing acclaim and international recognition, the award-winning Children of War is activating audiences and proving itself to be a timeless and powerful communication tool on the subjects of child soldiers, international justice, and post-war recovery and transformation.

Filmed in the former war-zone of northern Uganda over a period of three years, Children of War is a unique and incandescent film which follows a group of former child soldiers as they escape the battlefield, enter the sanctuary of a rehabilitation center, and undergo a process of trauma therapy and emotional healing. Having been abducted from their homes and schools and forced to become fighters by the Lord's Resistance Army -- a quasi-religious militia led by self-proclaimed prophet and war criminal Joseph Kony -- the children struggle to confront and break through years of captivity, extreme religious indoctrination, and participation in war crimes with the help of a team of trauma counselors.  

As these fearless allies guide the children forward into new lives, Children of War illuminates a powerful and cathartic story of forgiveness and hope in the aftermath of war. 

"Hearing the former child soldiers recount their personal experiences, it was easy to become cynical, hopeless, and fatalistic at their chances for recovery," confessed filmmaker Bryan Single. "But over time I witnessed something both astonishing and inspiring. As these children were guided day after day by their counselors, many of them began to open up and exhibit an honesty and articulation about their experiences far beyond their years. Confronting their deepest fears, demons, and crisis within afforded them a rare and precious light in the dark nights of their souls, and within and through this light many were able to transform their trauma and re-connect to feelings of forgiveness, hope, and renewal. I discovered there was so much the world could learn from these extraordinary children and their courageous process of recovery."

"A Journey of Homecoming and Hope"
Asha-Rose Migiro, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General

"Wonderful... Captures the joy of rebirth"
Radhika Coomaraswamy, United Nations Under-Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict

"Children of War is a remarkable film."
Amy Goodman, Author and Journalist at Democracy Now!

"The world must this film. Every school, every student, every leader"
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor

"I cannot remember a documentary so wrenching and hopeful, so guileless and authentic. Equally rare is documentary that can be called art. Children of War is an aesthetic masterpiece and I do not use that word lightly—if ever. It is other worldly and primordial, beckoning us to experience the brutality of war and the obliteration of innocence in children seconded into senseless brutality. Boys and girls who became the blunt instruments of war return within the watchfulness of Bryan's skillful filmmaking to the remembrance of goodness, an alchemical act of spirituality captured as if the filmmaker was invisible. Children of War should be seen by every young person in the world, and most certainly every trigger happy politician. A radically humanizing narrative done with perfect grace and skillfulness."
Paul Hawken, NY Times Best-selling Author and Entrepreneur

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AWARDS & SCREENINGS:

• Cinema For Peace Award for Justice, Berlin (presented by the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court)

• Barbara Hendricks Award in honor of Sergio Vieira de Mello, International Film Festival & Forum on Human Rights (FIFDA),

• World Premiere, United Nations General Assembly Hall, New York

• Artivist International Film Festival Award for Best Feature-Child's Advocacy, Los Angeles

• Armin T. Wegner Humanitarian Award

• European Premiere, Hosted by the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights & the European Union, Brussels

• Dutch Premiere, the International Criminal Court, the Hague

• US Premiere, The United States Institute of Peace, D.C.