April 16, 2012
We recently added Benda Bilili! to the DBRL collection. The film played at the 2011 True False Film Fest and currently has a rating of 92% from critics at Rotten Tomatoes. Here’s a synopsis from our catalog:
Follow an unlikely group of musicians in Kinshasa, capital of the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, from the streets to the world’s stages. The band, Staff Benda Bilili, is a group of street musicians composed of four paraplegics and three able-bodied men. The core of the group is four singer/guitarists who use customized tricycles to get around. French film directors Florent de la Tullaye and Renaud Barret document the band’s struggles to survive through music in the volatile city.
Check out the film trailer or the official film site for more info.
Filed under: new dvds
August 15, 2011
We recently added Reporter to the DBRL collection. The film played at the True False Film Fest in 2010, and was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Here’s a synopsis from the Reporter website:
Reporter is a feature documentary about Nicholas D. Kristof, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times, who almost single-handedly put the crisis in Darfur on the international radar. In the summer of 2007, Kristof traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to shine his light into the darkest pockets of conflict, in hopes of making the rest of the world take notice. The film injects the viewer into Kristof’s riveting journey — including a harrowing visit with the reigning warlord, and a race to the hospital to save a dying woman. One exhilarating experience after the next reveals how this renowned journalist finds and shapes the news , and how he struggles to stir our compassion into action. Reporter is a clarion call — a potent reminder that real reporting is crucial to our democracy, our world-awareness, and our capacity to be a force for good.
Check out the film trailer or the official film site for more info. This film was directed by Eric Daniel Metzgar, who has also directed The Chances of the World Changing.
Filed under: new dvds
