'Embedded filmmaking' behind Eritrean child soldier movie
BERLIN, Feb. 15 (AFP) — A movie about Eritrean child soldiers based on a disputed bestselling memoir premiered at the Berlin Film Festival Thursday in what reviewers call a prime example of a new genre: "embedded filmmaking"."Heart of Fire" (Feuerherz) tells the story of Awet, a nine-year-old girl who is pushed by her own father to train and then fight with a rebel group against a rival liberation army in the early 1980s.
Filmed in arid regions of northern Kenya, the picture recounts her ideological brainwashing and gradual coming of age against the terrifying backdrop of battles that dragged on for three decades.
The Hollywood Reporter said the film represented a trend of "embedded filmmaking" in which Western directors immerse themselves in remote regions, use local and usually lay actors and work in the native language.
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The term comes from the practice of journalists living with soldiers in a war zone as they conduct their reporting.
In cinema, it is used to describe movies that give voice to cultures deprived of the infrastructure and tradition of filmmaking but that often lack a true homegrown vision.
Among other examples of "embedded filmmaking" screening in Berlin is "Son of a Lion", a low-budget tale of a village of gunmakers in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier by Australian director Benjamin Gilmour, who spent eight months living among Pashtuns in the region.
"Munyurangabo" is another, made by New York-based Lee Isaac Chung in Rwanda using a crew of students that he and his team trained.
"Heart of Fire", made with lay actors in the Tigrinya language, premiered amid a controversy over whether minors fought in Eritrea.
"Heart of Fire" is based Senait Mehari's memoir of the same name, which was published in 2004.
Last year, a series of articles cast doubt on the facts as described in the book and a number of her contemporaries have disputed her account.
She has since acknowledged that she never fought at the front or even fired a gun but says that the story told in the book is nevertheless similar to what thousands of children experienced.
Mehari now lives in Germany and has faced lawsuits for libel over the book from Eritreans who dispute that a school they attended with her was in fact a military training camp for children.
Another has filed suit over her depiction in the book as a "brutal commander".
Italian-born director Luigi Falorni said he had intended the film not as a biography of Mehari but as an allegory inspired by the plight of millions of child soldiers around the world.
"I did not want to denounce a country. I wanted to tell a story," he told reporters.
"Based on this specific story, I wanted to evoke the fate of all the children involved in war against their will. The most difficult moment during the filming was when I had to put weapons in the hands of these children."
Falorni, who made "The Story of a Weeping Camel", an Oscar-nominated documentary released in 2004 about nomadic herdsmen in Mongolia, calls "Heart of Fire" a feature film with a documentary character.
Non-governmental organisations have accused Eritrean militias of using child soldiers, defined as anyone under the age of 18 involved in a military apparatus even if this does not involve combat.
But the Eritrean government and rebel groups have hotly denied using any minors on the battlefield.
Despite a brave performance by Letekidan Micael as the young soldier, the film got a cool reception in Berlin for a narrative critics said never really took off.
"Heart of Fire" is one of 21 films competing for the Berlinale's coveted Golden Bear award, which will be announced Saturday.
