Harry Saw That THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK!!!

Hey folks, Harry here… Sometimes attending a film festival like SXSW – you find time to kill. Empty slots in your schedule. Sunday – my first real night of films at SXSW – I saw something I wasn’t expecting. You see – there were two movies at ALAMO SOUTH Screen #2 that I wanted to see. Miramax’s New Zealand indie comedy, EAGLE VS. SHARK and Magnolia Pictures’ Sundance Horror phenom, THE SIGNAL. Come hell or high water (the rain outside was raising water fiercely) I was going to see those two. However, Yoko and I would have time to kill. We had a one film gap between the two features I wanted to see. We faced a choice. Why I love the South Lamar ALAMO location during SXSW is at junctures like this – you have two immediate choices. They were both documentaries. Both were films that didn’t seem like “fun times.” In Screen #1 was 1 MORE HIT – a doc that SXSW’s guide describes as “The filmmaker finds her friend - a once successful rap producer - homeless and addicted to crack. For two and half years, the two try everything, including a reality show, to overcome the musician's ten ton habit.” Then in Screen #2 there was THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK described as, “A politically-charged documentary look at the conflict in Darfur, through the eyes and camera of one disillusioned American soldier.” Now – I’ve read text on Darfur. I know that there is a Rwanda-like genocide going on there. I know that nobody anywhere seems to be lifting finger one to stop it. But it’s never really been a page 1 story anywhere. So I was curious. Let’s find out more. Before the film started, Annie Sundberg, one of the co-directors of the film came up to me, excited that I was there to see the film. 7 years ago we had met, when she was a producer on the amazing little indie film, TULLY – which AICN gave some complimentary press to, because it kicked ass – and well. Annie is a beautiful blonde American lady – and when you think about DARFUR – and the ugliness that you know must be inherent to the subject – you don’t think of someone like Annie staring at it endlessly cutting this film together. When I mentioned that I had never really seen footage from Darfur, but had read some articles – she nodded and said something to the degree of, “Nobody has really seen what is going on over there” and she meant, until now. THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK is a brutal documentary about a man named Brian Steidle. A retired Marine Captain – that left the military when it looked like he was going to spend time at a desk, rather than with a platoon of men, a life he had come to love. Serving his country, no matter the mission. He found himself looking for a job online. I don’t really understand how looking for a job, leads you into photographing genocide in the Sudanese province of Darfur… but that’s what happened to Brian Steidle. He had experienced combat. He’d seen terrible things. But working as an observer to document the alleged cease-fire in and around Darfur - he had to be “the witness”. The man that would shoot thousands of rounds of… pictures of the innocent women and children being raped, murdered, burned and worse. Systematic genocide. Documenting the numbers found dead, how they were killed, the movements of the killers. He was there with no gun. No way of stopping what he was seeing. His pictures were meant to motivate the world into action. His reports were to make us care. It was meant to be a clarion call to action. And things did happen. Colin Powell did declare what was happening in Darfur as genocide. President Bush did acknowledge it. UN did talk about it. International Criminal Courts did begin an investigation. And Brian Steidle testified and brought evidence to each of those and more. He took his case to the New York Times and the media networks. But the story wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t catchy. Genocide is a word that describes a horror so big as to be unfathomable. But when you watch a documentary like this one – the toil is reaped upon the viewer. There’s 50 minutes of this film that just open up the tear ducts and let them loose. It wasn’t so much the images of death, but how much the people there believe that we’re about to help. And ultimately, that America is dead. Or at least seems to be. We went after Saddam – decades after his most heinous activities were taken out upon his people. Sure – there could have been a future mass action by the man, but Iraq was fairly stable until we entered the picture. But in the SUDAN. In DARFUR, right now. As you read this. THOUSANDS of civilians are being killed systematically. However, the hardest part of the documentary and the screening at the Alamo South – was after the film ended and Brian Steidle stood in front of all of us – Here’s a man, a white man. A patriotic man. A man that believes that we’re the America of our father’s father’s. The United States of the Berlin Air Lift. The United States with the flag worth saluting. He believes in the countries of the world. In the basic goodness of humanity… even with what he’s seen. And in Brian’s eyes – as you meet him, you can see a curtain of memory drawn across his eyes that tells you that what you just saw wasn’t the work of a visual effects company – this wasn’t some work of fiction. This happened and continues to happen as I write this – as I plan on watching other movies – as I go home tonight. This is as real as anything we’ve ever experienced and he has got to share the weight of what he’s seen, because it’s more than any man can be asked to carry. He asked that we each write a handwritten letter to our Senators and Representatives. Ultimately – they treat our email as spam. Our handwritten letters – get to their desks, affect policy. Seek out their phone numbers and the phone number of the White House to say you’re concerned about what is happening in Darfur. What is happening there? You can learn more at TheDevilCameOnHorseback.com - You can go to: this site and here. It’s an overwhelming issue, but one that can be overwhelmed. I sat there in the theater wanting to do something, and ultimately – right now I’m skipping several movies I could be watching to write about this one. Because this isn’t just a movie. A confection to snack on popcorn and lightly digest. This is a film that COMMANDS attention and action. This isn’t liberalism or conservatism – this is REALITY. It’s time we stop bickering amongst ourselves, stop contributing to the sorrow of the world, and get back to helping to give hope back to the hopeless. To be America again, not the bully, but the shining example. When I think about the coverage that Anna Nicole Smith or Britney Spears or any of the other puff pieces get in legitimate news sources. This is one of the biggest stories in the world. This is the sort of reality that makes history look shameful. I wish someone like Oprah would take DARFUR on – it’s something she could really make a difference in terms of waking people up to. Read more on this. Write some letters, watch the film, make some calls, let some people know. Don’t be complacent or blissfully ignorant of the horrors of the world. Stare at them – and let that horror fuel you to action. We shouldn’t live in a world like this one second longer than the moment we found out about it.