Browse Films

Filmed in northern Uganda over a period of three years,  Children Of War is a unique and incandescent documentary which follows a group of former child soldiers as they undergo a process of trauma therapy and emotional healing while in a rehabilitation center.

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.

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

"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

full review

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

"This riveting documentary hits you on so many levels -- visceral, cognitive, psychological, social, and political... It leads to provocative and thoughtful classroom discussion, deeper understanding about child soldiers and the life-long impact it has on them, and to questions of why this type of behavior can go on."
William Pfohl, Former President, National Association of School Psychologists

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.