Invisible Children

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — When three American college students traveled to Africa, they got more than cultural shock: they found one of the most devastating travesties on earth in Northern Uganda, where 30,000 children have been abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to fight and ultimately become human sacrifices.

The University of Arkansas School of Law’s International Law Society will show the documentary Invisible Children at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 23 in the E. J. Ball Courtroom of the Leflar Law Center. The screening is free and open to the public, and the community at large is invited to attend.

Invisible Children documents these students’ journey to Sudan and then Uganda, where for 20 years the LRA, one of Africa's most feared rebel groups, has waged a war against the government, killing civilians and abducting thousands of children to fight in the war. The rebels and government signed a landmark truce last August, raising hopes of an end to the rebellion, but some say a final peace deal remains far off, and for the children, this outcome is devastating.

“When I look at the immense suffering of these children, it’s intolerable and insufferable,” says one of the Ugandan women in the documentary. The woman works at a hospital where each morning children rush in to find a place to sleep for the night. The children live like nomads to avoid abduction, fomenting some of the larger problems in Africa implied in the movie, including AIDS and poverty.

The filmmakers - Jason Russell (director), Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole (all of whom become players in their own documentary in a way that mimics reality television) - wind up in Uganda enmeshed in a story almost unfathomable to them and their media-savvy lives. In some ways, it’s a coming of age documentary, as the young men encounter true horror and learn more about humanity than perhaps they ever expected, and yet the documentary turns into a cinematic portrayal of Africa as seen through young American eyes - realistic, poignant and often times heart-wrenching footage.

The filmmakers, two of whom were film students at University of Southern California, have been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN and the National Geographic Channel, and they have started a nonprofit organization to encourage people to become more aware of the suffering in Uganda.

For more information about the documentary, to learn more about Uganda or to download a curriculum for grades 10, 11 and 12, visit the Web site at http://www.invisiblechildren.com.

Parking for the screening is available at the Union Parking Garage off Stadium Drive.