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English Titles E

Ezra

Original title: Ezra
German title: Ezra
France/Nigeria/Austria, 2007

Director: Aduaka, Newton I.
Production company: Cinefacto
Co-producers: ARTE France
Age recommendation: 15 years and up

Synopsis:
A winner of the 2007 Fespaco Golden Stallion, the top prize at Africa's premier film showcase event, Aduaka's inspired film is a forthright dramatisation of the sadistic exploitation of children, and the complexities of diamond exploration in Africa.

The film's journey spans a ten-year period in the life of a child soldier. Aged seven, Ezra is kidnapped and drugged by rebels who train him to commit atrocities in an arduous civil war that contribute to the death of his parents, and the mutilation of his sister Onitcha. Seven years later, Ezra is arrested and is brought before the nation's Truth and Reconciliation Commission tribunal set up under the auspices of the UN. During the trial Ezra has to face his now mute sister standing as a chief witness against him.

What follows in flashback is a narrative of brutalised and drugged child soldiers coerced into committing terrible acts, often against their own families. Both important and timely, Ezra is an impassioned, simply told story about Africa's search for the salvation of its children.

Festivals:
Awards: Grand prize Etalon d'Or de Yennenga - FESPACO 2007, Prix Spécial des Nations Unies pour la promotion d'une culture de la Tolérance et de la Paix - FESPACO 2007, Audience Prize - Milan African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival, Italy 2007, Best Film Award - 28th Durban International Film Festival, South Africa 2007

Festivals:
Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la
Télévision de Ouagadougou (FESPACO),
Burkina Faso 2007 - Official Competition, Special Screening Cannes 2007 -
International Critics' Week, Sundance Film Festival, 2007 - World Dramatic Competition, Milan African, Asian and Latin American
Film Festival, Italy 2007 - Official Competition, Cannes International Critics' Week 2007 - Special Screening, Durban International Film Festival, South Africa 2007 - Offical Competition, La Rochelle International Film Festival France 2007, Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Brasil - "Frontiers" Section, Hamburg Film Festival, Germany 2007 - Agendo 07 Section, Barcelona Festival de Cinema Politic, Spain 2007 - Official competition, Oslo Films from the South / Film fra Sør Festival, Norway 2007, Warsaw International Film Festival,
Poland 2007, London bfi Film Festival, UK 2007, Kristiansand 2008

World sales address/es:
Wide Management (FR)