28 January 2007

An Important Film

Last weekend I went to see Blood Diamond, a film I've been looking forward to seeing since I first heard about it because it's about my beloved Sierra Leone, where I fell in love with Africa. It's the story of Sierra Leone's brutal rebel war and in particular a Mende man who is captured by the rebels and forced to work in a diamond mine. He finds a massive pink diamond and hides it and later gets connected with a South African diamond smuggler who says he can help him get his family back and an American journalist who wants to reveal the secrets of conflict diamond smuggling to the world. The film graphically shows the terror and horrors that the Sierra Leonean people experienced and also highlights the plight of child soldiers. For me, it hit very close to home as it gave me a small idea of what my young friends in Sierra Leone had experienced when they lost their families.

I highly recommend it. It's hard to watch and I had to close my eyes lots because it's so real and terrifying but I think films like this are an important wake-up call to the realities of the world we live in. If you've seen it, tell me what you think...

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