God No Say So

Swiss director Brigitte Uttar Kornetzky filmed in Sierra Leone, where a civil war raged from 1991 to 2002. She interviewed some of the tens of thousands who had one or both hands cut off. (‘All of us were complete before.’) One of them answers the question of whether he wants to avenge himself on the culprits: ‘God no say so’.
Kornetzky allows himself to be led around a bunker-like hiding place (‘The Bonka’), where people sought refuge during the war. En passant, a helicopter flies over with the arrested Charles Taylor, the former Lebanese president, on his way to the Sierra Leone tribunal.
The film maker speaks to a prostitute about her dreams of the future and films children dancing enthusiastically at school. She juxtaposes the portraits with dreamy shots of the surroundings, often with backlighting or in close-up and accompanied by slow, dramatic music. She also regularly shows people sewing and knitting – a symbol of recovering from the past and building for the future.

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