Facing Sudan (Special Edition)
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Film Overview

Directed By: Bruce David Janu View Official Website	Release Date: 2008-01-08 Running Time: 1:30 Content Rating: PG (Parental Guidance)	DVD Region: 1 - U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories Media Format: NTSC-DVD Aspect Ratio: 4:3 Audio Language(s): English Subtitle Language(s): English
Genres: Documentary >> General

Synopsis

Brian Burns is a seemingly ordinary person. When we meet him, he is sweeping the floors in a suburban high school. But looks can be deceiving. Brian has a story to tell. It is a story of suffering. It is a story of death. It is a story of refugees running for cover at the ominous sound of a plane engine. But it is also the story of strength, courage and hope.

It is the story of Sudan.

Told through the eyes of ordinary people, living seemingly ordinary lives, Facing Sudan is truly about the Sudanese people struggling to survive. It is the story of the countless thousands who live day to day in refugee camps. It is the story of the world's reaction to the atrocities and violence in that war-torn African nation.

The film demonstrates that seemingly ordinary individuals can do extraordinary things.

A custodian. A housewife. A pediatrician. A grandmother. Seemingly ordinary individuals. Yet these individuals have a story to tell.

It is the story of Sudan and what it takes to make a difference there.

Attention teachers: FREE lesson plans are available at http://www.facingsudan.com/plans.html

Note: The purchase of this dvd at this price includes a limited public performance license. The owner of the dvd has the right to show the dvd in a public setting as long as the purpose is educational and without the charging of admission.

Crew

Director: Bruce David Janu | bio
Bruce David Janu is first and foremost an educator. He teaches history, sociology and literature at John Hersey High School in Chicago's northwest suburbs. In addition, he teaches film study as part of his sociology curriculum.

Growing up, he had an intense love for film. So much so that he started making films for his classes and, when a friend asked him to shoot her wedding, Janu discovered a niche. He started a successful videography business that produces documentary-like wedding videos. In addition, he has made several educational videos, including The Adventures of History Guy: Gothic Cathedrals and In Search of Goth(ic).

In addition to his visual work, Bruce has also written several books: Bring Out Your Dead: Bringing the Black Death to Life in the Classroom, Mouldering in the Grave: A Dramatic Approach to Teaching about John Brown and The Constitution: A Cooperative Learning Approach. He has also written several articles for Illinois History Teacher.

This is his first feature documentary.
Composer: Lorne Clarke | bio
For more than 25 years, Canada's Lorne Clarke has been performing at festivals, clubs, house concerts and theatres across Canada and the United States. A powerful singer and gifted songwriter, he cut his teeth as a performing artist in the busy Toronto folk scene in the early 1970's - branching out into Bluegrass in the mid 1980's. In 1994 Clarke returned to the solo acoustic folk scene with a series of critically acclaimed performances on US Public Radio and TV.

In October 1999, Lorne Clarke released his eponymously titled debut CD. It is a powerful collection of 14 original songs in a rich acoustic package, featuring an outstanding musical cast and produced by internationally respected producer/engineer, George Graham.

Currently, together with fellow singer/songwriter Tom Flannery, he uses the website Songaweek.com to showcase his latest songs. Over the 18 months, the site has amassed nearly 100,000 downloads...a remarkable number for songwriters with no label support.

In April of 2004 Lorne finished collaborating with Flannery on a Rwandan Song Cycle, 14 original songs dealing with 1994's Rwandan genocide.

In addition to his ongoing solo concert work Clarke has opened shows for a number of notable artists, including Rita MacNeil, The Men Of The Deeps Choir, Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop, Michael Jerling, and Chipper Thompson.

He has also shared the bill with folks like Tom Flannery, Jane Siberry, Mose Scarlett, Bo Jamison, and Australia's Greg Hastings.

Clarke is currently busy running one of the top folk music concert series in the state. The Old Church Concert Series has already brought such acclaimed acts as Jez Lowe and James Keelaghan to the small village of Lynn Pennsylvania. Clarke started the series back in September of 2000 and thus far the shows have been a huge success, earning the series the reputation as one of the most hospitable places in the state for the traveling folk artist to play.

Lorne Clarke is a singer and songwriter worthy of your attention. In an era when it seems there is an "outstanding new talent" on every street corner and the media are so filled with hyperbole that adjectives have lost their meanings, it is refreshing to find the real thing. His public performances are powerful and riveting -- yet somehow each member of the audience comes away from the concerts feeling like they've just visited with an old friend.
Composer: Tom Flannery | bio
Northeast Pennsylvania singer-songwriter (and playwright) Tom Flannery has been called "one of the most gifted songwriters to emerge at the turn of the century" (by the All Music Guide). Pretty heady stuff for the unassuming descendent of Irish coal miners. "I read that and I was like....well.....I guess I know what to put in big type on the front page of my website," he said.

Since his 1998 debut Song About a Train, which the AMG called "heartfelt and brilliant", he's been steadily building an impressive, grassroots following. Mainly through the web, since he plays only a handful of live gigs a year. "I love to play live", he says with a sigh. "I just hate everything that goes with it. The travel, the near starvation, the empty chairs, the singing your guts out for $50, the folk nazis, the flat tires, missing the kids. The business of it all just sucks. So I said screw it. I'll stay in my basement and write."

And so, after 2 more official releases, The Anthracite Shuffle in 2000 and the solo acoustic Drinking With Nick Drake in 2002 (both of which received rave reviews....the former being called "a brilliant and eclectic tapestry of American folk music" while the latter was dubbed "intimate, direct, beautifully limpid...the strongest set of lyrics he has yet penned"), he created the SongaWeek.com website. "I decided to just give everything away", he says. "And I mean everything. I write so many songs, and it costs like 10 grand to put out an "official" CD with a dozen tracks on it. I was writing 2 or 3 songs a week at that point. Hell, I'd be broke in a month. My problem is I don't dabble in anything. Once I get hooked I become manic. So I bought a digital 8 track machine and I've released everything since digitally through the web." This includes tracks that make up 2 online song cycles, 2004's heartbreaking A Rwandan Song Cycle, and Songs for Woody, a collection of songs about his idol, Woody Guthrie. A brand new song cycle, this one dealing the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, will be released in early 2007. "Ain't I a cheery bastard?" he says.

The title of the SongaWeek website was no idle boast. Since it's debut in the spring of 2003, Flannery has not missed a single deadline. One new song (at least) has been released as an MP3 every week since then. All are recorded solo acoustic. "I'd hire a band but I don't pay very well", Flannery says. "Actually, I don't pay at all. So, solo acoustic it is. Fine with me. Less arguments and no more drunken drummers."

The response has been overwhelming. His website has had over 750,000 downloads in 3 and a half years.

Bonus Features

Theatrical Trailers
Scene Selections
Deleted & Extended Scenes
Director Commentary

Accolades

Awards

Best Documentary Landlocked Film Festival 2007
Best Documentary Illinois International Film Festival 2007

Festivals

Longbaugh Film Festival 2007
Flint Film Festival 2007
Breckenridge Festival of Film 2007
Boston International Film Festival 2007
Staten Island Film Festival 2007
South Side Film Festival 2007
Rome International Film Festival 2007
Charlotte Film Festival 2007
Kansas International Film Festival 2007
Bluegrass Independent Film Festival 2007
Global Peace Film Festival 2007
Port Townsend Film Festival 2007

Press Reviews

DIG Boston's Weekly | show/hide snippet
Bruce David Janu, a filmmaker and teacher in Illinois, was pulled into the genocidal mess in Sudan through Brian Burns, a custodian at the high school where Janu teaches. Burns’s enthusiasm for aid work in Africa was infectious enough to inspire Janu to film a full-length documentary about him and other ordinary people who have taken it upon themselves to help Sudanese refugees. It’s a departure for Janu, whose filmmaking until now has been limited to amusingly titled educational films like The Adventures of History Guy: Gothic Cathedrals. But his educational background has served him well—he’s meticulous about documenting the haunting horror of the refugees and rescuers alike. Hard will be the conscience that leaves the theater unpricked.
Arts a la Mode | show/hide snippet
"Bruce David Janu’s documentary, Facing Sudan, is an incredible testimonial of both how horrible human beings can be to one another, and how seemingly ordinary people can stand up in the face of that horror and make a difference....The atrocities presented in Facing Sudan, are horrible and upsetting. The fact that they are being carried out by other human beings because of a difference in ethnicity is depressing. The power of this film is the way it shows how individuals can make a difference, and the hope instilled in watching them make that difference."
Kansas City Star | show/hide snippet
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Bruce David Janu's documentary centers on Brian Burns, a seemingly unremarkable young American who volunteered to work with refugees of Sudan's long, atrocity-filled civil war. Through devastating footage and Burns' own unassuming testimony, the film becomes an indictment of our own comfortable complacency.

Robert W. Butler
September 13, 2007
School Library Journal | show/hide snippet
Twenty years of bloody internal fighting in Sudan have left millions dead and displaced. Even though high profile celebrities continue to bring the mayhem to the forefront, most of the world’s governments have been unwilling or impotent to intervene in the genocide. This low-key but overwhelmingly powerful documentary shows how individuals can affect the ongoing situation. Interviews with those involved as well as the victims of the violence are supplemented by a powerful collection of video footage, including actual Sudanese military attacks on the populace. Resulting from a seemingly incidental conversation between a young custodian in a suburban Chicago high school and Bruce David Janu, a social science teacher, this timely and touching program provides both a historical context as well as a striking contemporary description of the political, social, medical, and military mayhem in Africa’s darkest corner. One segment on the Lost Boys of Sudan will particularly hit home with younger viewers; be cautioned that there are several instances of graphic images of death and explicit descriptions of events. The film was produced and directed by a teacher who crafted it to be as classroom-friendly as possible with scene selection, English subtitles, several bonus tracks, useful lesson plan suggestions, and a moving soundtrack of original compositions which greatly enhances the spirit of the program. This excellent, award-winning film will definitely have a deep impact on viewers.
BookList | show/hide snippet
Featuring graphic photographs, home-movie footage, and heartbreaking testimonies, this film is “told through the eyes of ordinary people” who are helping the Sudanese, many of whom are dying of starvation and disease. The camera captures images of these valiant heroes, including a college student who travels to Africa to photograph the Sudanese and stays to pass out medicines and offer comfort to malnourished refugees. A Chicago woman opens her home and heart to “lost boys” who seek a better life in America; a New Jersey doctor leaves his thriving practice to give aid to needy Africans; a high-school girl sends disposable cameras to children in refugee camps who take pictures of family and friends victimized by the ethnic struggle; and a young man returns to his native country to help drill wells that provide clean water for thousands. This moving, eye-opening documentary is a call to action.