I received an email after my last blog from a rep at attentionusa.com.  They are a NYC PR firm working to help get the word out about Reporter, last year’s documentary by Eric Daniel Metzgar about Nicholas Kristof that premiered at Sundance in 2009.  It will be airing on HBO this month and they offered to send us a screener so we could check it out.

Here is the trailer:

The film follows Kristof (@NickKristof) as he travels in and around Goma (in the province of North Kivu) as he looks for a story that will bring the world’s attention to the plight facing the Congolese people.  The film is composed of three themes–one part treatise on the psychology of human compassion, one part raw examination of the DR Congo crisis, and one part snapshot of the flailing newspaper industry.  The sum of these parts is a riveting documentary which sheds light on the nature of the issues facing the DR Congo while it attempts to put a face to the crisis it examines.

USING SIMPLICITY TO AWAKEN ABILITY

Metzgar begins his film with a short quote:

“If I look at the mass, I will never act.  If I look at the one, I will.” – Mother Teresa

The director examines the science behind compassion, noting that as NGO’s try to raise support for issues, the more complex their message gets, the harder it is to get people to act. I know as I hear the stats about Congo, hear rape stories, see children starving, that I begin to find myself overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the situation.  Kristof knows that if he can find that ONE right story during his visit to the DRC, he could expose the world to it’s slumber of inaction and hopefully reveal to them their ability to do something.

Whether he finds his story will be up to you.  But I think of all the films I have seen on the DRC in the last four years, the story he does find vividly shows the collateral damage caused by the 16 year war being fought in the Congo.  When the death toll from any war rises into the millions, the bulk of the perished are not from violence.  But, unfortunately violence sells.  Starvation and disease that result from growing instability never become a headline–and Kristof is actively working to change that.

ATTENTION VS. ACTION

I think the most inspiring thing about the piece for me, was the revelation that just because an issue is receiving attention doesn’t mean the cause has found it’s voice.  Kristof was one of the first journalists to begin shining his light on the conflict in Darfur early last decade.  He would repeatedly write stories about the injustice facing the Sudanese people until someone listened.  One woman interviewed in the film points out that repetition can be a fear of journalists.  You want to have breaking news.  But writers that were continuous in their denouncement of the Holocaust during WWII were not derided later for their repetition.  Their voice was necessary to ending the horror occurring at that time, and the same is true for humanitarian disasters like Congo and Darfur today.  Attention does not equal action.

Enough cannot be said.

The chorus must get louder.

I definitely recommend that if you have HBO, you check this film out, as it will surely leave an impression.  Hopefully it will add to a growing chorus working to help the Congolese people leave this war behind them.