"É necessário arrepender-se dos actos cometidos no século XX. Só assim seremos capazes de caminhar para a frente neste mundo e encarar o olhar das nossas crianças. Do contrário morreremos vazios, ignorantes e inexpressivos."
Veja também aqui: http://videos.sapo.pt/NZqwl9ikrzTh7mWEO2si
See also here: http://videos.sapo.pt/NZqwl9ikrzTh7mWEO2si
See also here: http://videos.sapo.pt/NZqwl9ikrzTh7mWEO2si
Cinco veteranos de guerra que lutaram em lados inimigos voltam aos antigos campos de batalha de Angola em busca de reconciliação, perdão e ... redenção?
“Sentado no meu apartamento em Estocolmo, com as minhas pequenas meninas brincando com os meus pés, e minha mulher ao meu lado no sofá, eu não consigo parar de pensar em si, meu irmão negro, meu ex-inimigo de armas, enquanto as imagens das notícias vindas do Iraque e do Sudão invadem a minha vida. Meu inimigo, meu amigo, por mais que eu tente não pensar em si, você está sempre presente cada vez que eu fecho os olhos para dormir. Aqueles olhos. Aquele olhar. Aquele ódio tão vívido em minha memória - poderia aquele ódio ter-se transformado com o passar dos anos, assim como o meu?”
Estas palavras são de Marius, director de filmes e ex-paraquedista das Forças de Defesa da África do Sul. Ele próprio um sobrevivente da Síndrome do Stress Pós-Trauma, Marius dirige o programa de auto-ajuda para veteranos de guerra traumatizados da Associação de Veteranos Sul-Africanos.
No documentário "My Heart of Darkness" ("Meu Coração de Trevas"), de Staffan Julén & Marius van Niekerk, acompanhamos a viagem de reconciliação de Marius ao longo do Rio Cuito, (Angola), junto a três de seus antigos inimigos de guerra, também vítimas da Síndrome do Estresse Pós-Trauma.
Regressam à cidade de Cuito Cuanavale, onde no passado lutaram entre si em linhas inimigas.
Enquanto se aproximam lentamente daquele campo de batalha, os seus corações de trevas, suas memórias, invadem a cena aos poucos, como as infindáveis planícies que margeiam o rio.
Serão eles capazes de perdoarem-se?
Serão eles capazes de perdoar a si próprios?
Poderão eles finalmente alcançar a absolvição?
Sul de Angola.
Navegamos por um rio que se enrosca como uma grande serpente castanha, ao longo de uma paisagem árida. Cinco homens de meia-idade, estranhos num barco, viajam de volta a Cuito Cuanavale, local da última "grande" batalha da Guerra Fria - o tão secreto conflito final, e a guerra que nunca acabou.
Apenas jovens rapazes naquela época, no Cuito tentaram matar uns aos outros.
Mas hoje são ex-inimigos, uma nova tropa formada por almas desesperadas, unidas por um único inimigo comum - a Síndrome do Stress Pós-Trauma.
Na bagagem, cada um trouxe a sua caixa de memórias, lembranças da guerra guardadas para lembrar.
Todo o veterano possui uma pequena colecção de coisas horríveis.
Os nossos cinco ex-combatentes trazem de volta ao Cuito as suas memórias horríveis, para confrontar os seus pesadelos, com a esperança de finalmente se libertarem desses pesadelos, de uma vez por todas.
Enquanto o barco navega rio acima, visitamos cada um deles nas suas casas, isolados, sozinhos com as suas batalhas internas.
Cinco homens, cinco famílias, cinco vidas destroçadas.
Por que razão estou sempre a ponto de explodir, e de atacar e ferir até mesmo aqueles a quem eu amo?
Por que acordo subitamente no meio da noite, suando, correndo, sendo perseguido, aterrorizado?
Por que me sinto tão sozinho, tão incompreendido, até mesmo ao lado daqueles que possuem as mesmas e indescritíveis lembranças?
Por que tenho tantos ciúmes de risos e gargalhadas, e por que me sinto tão mal pela minha incapacidade de amar e de expressar sentimentos?
Os académicos debatem sobre quem ganhou a guerra.
Os nossos heróis não dão a mínima importância a isto. Eles sabem com certeza quem são os perdedores - todos aqueles que participaram desta guerra. Eles foram programados para matar por uma causa, e os resultados dos seus actos hoje, vinte anos depois, são especialmente obscuros.
Alguma coisa mudou, defacto?
O mundo seguiu adiante com novas e diferentes questões, algumas ainda tentando ser resolvidas através dos mesmos métodos de violência.
Mas eles, estes quatro veteranos de guerra, ainda lutam, e ainda são prisioneiros do inferno psicológico das suas lembranças.
Um dia moveram céus e terras para ver uns aos outros mortos, mas hoje estão do mesmo lado - Vítimas da História e da Síndrome do Stress Pós-Trauma.
Agora juntos, regressam ao Cuito, em busca de respostas, tentando redescobrir aquilo que flhes retiraram - a sua humanidade.
Escritores e Directores - Staffan Julén & Marius van Niekerk
Diretor de Fotografia - Peter Östlund (fsf)
Editores - Clas Lindberg (Pilot), Darek Hodor
Produtores - Per Forsgren
Contatos - Eden Film Erstagatan 3F, 116 28 Stockholm
Tel & fax +46-8-641 75 78
info@edenfilm.se
Escritores e Directores - Staffan Julén & Marius van Niekerk
Diretor de Fotografia - Peter Östlund (fsf)
Editores - Clas Lindberg (Pilot), Darek Hodor
Produtores - Per Forsgren
Contatos - Eden Film Erstagatan 3F, 116 28 Stockholm
Tel & fax +46-8-641 75 78
info@edenfilm.se
....................................................................................................................................
[ANGOLA] My Heart of Darkness
The victims of war not just those that die, but also those who kill
Eden Films Presents
An Eden Film/Akwafrica/Gebruder Beets Productions
My Heart of Darkness
a film by Staffan Julén and Marius van Niekerk
“The misdoings of the 20th century have to be repented for. Only then can we move forward in this world and face the eyes of our children or else die hollow, ignorant and meaningless.”
Five war veterans, former enemies journey back to past battlefields in Angola in search of reconciliation, forgiveness and... atonement?
Eden Films Presents
An Eden Film/Akwafrica/Gebruder Beets Productions
My Heart of Darkness
a film by Staffan Julén and Marius van Niekerk
“The misdoings of the 20th century have to be repented for. Only then can we move forward in this world and face the eyes of our children or else die hollow, ignorant and meaningless.”
Five war veterans, former enemies journey back to past battlefields in Angola in search of reconciliation, forgiveness and... atonement?
“Sitting in my Stockholm flat, my little girls playing at my feet, my wife next to me on the couch, I can’t help thinking of you, my Black brother, my former enemy in arms, as newsreel footage from Iraq and Sudan invade my life. My enemy, my friend, as much as I try to not think of you, you are there still every time I close my eyes to sleep. Those eyes. That stare. That hate that I so well remember - can it have changed over the years as mine has?”
These are the words of Marius, filmmaker and former paratrooper conscripted into the South African Defence Force. Himself a survivor of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD, Marius runs the South African Veterans Association’ self-help program for traumatised war veterans.
In Staffan Julén & Marius van Niekerk’s film “My Heart of Darkness” we follow Marius’ journey of reconciliation up the Cuito River, together with four of his former enemies, also PTSD sufferers, they are returning to the town of Cuito Cuanavale where they once fought against each other. As they slowly move towards that battlefield, their hearts of darkness, their memories crowd in like the endless savannah on either side of the slowly passing riverbank. Will they be able to forgive each other? Will they be able to forgive themselves? Will they finally find absolution? Southern Angola. We move up a river that winds like a great, brown snake through a scorched landscape. Five middle-aged men, strangers in a boat, journey back to Cuito Cuanavale, site of the last “great” battle of the Cold War – its inconclusive and a very secret Armageddon. Just boys back then, at Cuito they tried to kill each other. But now they are former enemies, a new unit of disparate souls joined by a single, common haunting - PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Packed in their gear each has brought their shoebox of memories, trinkets from the war, saved to remember. Every veteran has one - little collection of horrible things. Our five are taking theirs back, back to Cuito to confront their nightmares, and hopefully to leave them behind once and for all.
As their boat churns upriver, we visit each at home, isolated, alone with their inner struggles. Five men, five families, five fucked-up lives. Why am I always ready to crack, to strike out even against those I love? Why do I snap awake in the middle of the night, running, sweating, pursued, terrified? Why do I feel so alone, so misunderstood, even with those who share my unspeakable memories? Why am I so jealous of laughter, and so destroyed by my own inability to love or express emotion?
Academics debate who won that war. Our heroes could not care less. They know for sure who lost - everyone who was involved. They’d each been programmed to kill for a cause, and the end results of their actions now, twenty years later, are singularly unclear. Has anything really changed? The world has gone on to new and different issues, some trying to be solved by the same violent means, but they, these five, are still doing time, still locked in the psychological purgatory of memory. They may once have moved heaven and earth to see each other dead, but now they’re on the same side – victims of history, sufferers of PTSD. Together now, they are going back to Cuito, looking for answers, trying to rediscover what was taken from them – their humanity.
Writers and Directors - Staffan Julén & Marius van Niekerk
Director of Photography - Peter Östlund (fsf)
Producers - Staffan Julén & Tony N’Guxi
Contact - Eden Film, Erstagatan 17, 116 36 Stockholm
Tel: +46-768-559 886, +46-70-487 3071
info@edenfilm.se
These are the words of Marius, filmmaker and former paratrooper conscripted into the South African Defence Force. Himself a survivor of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD, Marius runs the South African Veterans Association’ self-help program for traumatised war veterans.
In Staffan Julén & Marius van Niekerk’s film “My Heart of Darkness” we follow Marius’ journey of reconciliation up the Cuito River, together with four of his former enemies, also PTSD sufferers, they are returning to the town of Cuito Cuanavale where they once fought against each other. As they slowly move towards that battlefield, their hearts of darkness, their memories crowd in like the endless savannah on either side of the slowly passing riverbank. Will they be able to forgive each other? Will they be able to forgive themselves? Will they finally find absolution? Southern Angola. We move up a river that winds like a great, brown snake through a scorched landscape. Five middle-aged men, strangers in a boat, journey back to Cuito Cuanavale, site of the last “great” battle of the Cold War – its inconclusive and a very secret Armageddon. Just boys back then, at Cuito they tried to kill each other. But now they are former enemies, a new unit of disparate souls joined by a single, common haunting - PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Packed in their gear each has brought their shoebox of memories, trinkets from the war, saved to remember. Every veteran has one - little collection of horrible things. Our five are taking theirs back, back to Cuito to confront their nightmares, and hopefully to leave them behind once and for all.
As their boat churns upriver, we visit each at home, isolated, alone with their inner struggles. Five men, five families, five fucked-up lives. Why am I always ready to crack, to strike out even against those I love? Why do I snap awake in the middle of the night, running, sweating, pursued, terrified? Why do I feel so alone, so misunderstood, even with those who share my unspeakable memories? Why am I so jealous of laughter, and so destroyed by my own inability to love or express emotion?
Academics debate who won that war. Our heroes could not care less. They know for sure who lost - everyone who was involved. They’d each been programmed to kill for a cause, and the end results of their actions now, twenty years later, are singularly unclear. Has anything really changed? The world has gone on to new and different issues, some trying to be solved by the same violent means, but they, these five, are still doing time, still locked in the psychological purgatory of memory. They may once have moved heaven and earth to see each other dead, but now they’re on the same side – victims of history, sufferers of PTSD. Together now, they are going back to Cuito, looking for answers, trying to rediscover what was taken from them – their humanity.
Writers and Directors - Staffan Julén & Marius van Niekerk
Director of Photography - Peter Östlund (fsf)
Producers - Staffan Julén & Tony N’Guxi
Contact - Eden Film, Erstagatan 17, 116 36 Stockholm
Tel: +46-768-559 886, +46-70-487 3071
info@edenfilm.se
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