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HBO: What compelled you to make this film?
Lisa F. Jackson: The epidemic of sexual violence has been
ravaging Eastern Congo for the last ten years,
and it is getting little to no mainstream media
coverage. I had actually wanted for many
years to do a survey film about the fate of
women and girls in modern conflict and post
conflict. And the Congo came onto my screen
as part of the research that I was doing for
this longer film. And the more I found out
about the catastrophe of rape in the Congo,
the more I realized I needed to find out what
was happening there and why the media
wasn't covering it.
So I cashed in frequent flyer miles in May of
2006 and flew to Kinshasa in Western Congo,
and got UN credentials and proceeded with
my camera in my handy backpack to Eastern
Congo and started finding women who would
share their stories with me. And I realized
very quickly that it was not a segment in a
larger film but a film in itself.
HBO: Why do you think the world seems so
oblivious to these tragedies that have
happened, and are continuing?
Lisa F. Jackson: It's hard for me to understand why the world
seems so consistently oblivious to this
conflict. A lot of people in the West consider it
too complicated, and it's not complicated. It's
a resource war. It's a holocaust in slow
motion because it has been going on for so
many years. It's a well known fact in the
humanitarian community that an estimated
five million people have died in the last ten
years in this conflict, which means it's more
than ten Darfurs.
Why it continues to remain so hidden and
obscure, I haven't a clue. I think it's appalling
and really irresponsible on the part of the
media not to be covering it. And it's one of the
goals I have with the film is to bring attention
to these forgotten women in a forgotten war. I think there is something about sexual
violence that makes people turn away. I
interviewed a UN peacekeeper on this exact
subject, and he admitted to great discomfort
in talking about this. He acknowledged that it
is something that we want to push to one side
because it's a hard thing to contemplate.
In the Congo, women and girls are
intentionally being targeted for several
reasons, I think. First of all, rape is cheaper
than bullets, and it has just unimaginable,
far-ranging consequences not only for the
women and girls who have been violated and
traumatized, but also for the community at
large.
Once a woman has been raped, most of the
time, she is rejected by her family, by her
husband, by her village. If she's been
chucked out of her village, she becomes a
displaced person in her own country. The
rapes are often so violent that the women are
basically destroyed physically, even after
multiple surgeries.
Part of the problem is that women in Africa,
women in many cultures, are devalued,
they're considered property. But at the same
time, they're very often the linchpin of the
society. They're the ones that nurture, the
ones that take care of the children; they're the
ones that carry these massive loads. And
without women, the society begins to break
down and it can be called a femicide, what's
happening in Eastern Congo. And the
country is on its knees anyway, and this is
only taking it further to the brink of complete
disaster.
HBO: And at the same time, what's extraordinary is
the courage and strength these women and
girls possess in carrying on, and creating
support systems for themselves after having
been so traumatized.
Lisa F. Jackson: One of the things that keeps the film from
being a complete bummer is the fierce life and
vitality that you sense in all of the women that
I interview. And most of the people who have
screened it, especially on the film festival tour
that I'm on right now, say exactly the same
thing to me afterwards: there is so much grace
and resiliency and inner strength, and just
the ability to keep going after the humiliations
and pains that they've suffered. You have a
sense that they're extraordinary creatures.
HBO: What do you hope audiences will take away
from the film?
Lisa F. Jackson: To have a film like this on HBO is like a bully pulpit, and I hope that the people who see it, once they meet these women, I hope that they
will never forget them and will be haunted by
their stories and want to do something to help
change their circumstances, whether that's
lobbying congressmen and congresswomen,
whether it's asking their newspapers to run
more stories, whether it's providing direct
support in terms of donations to some of the
organizations working on the ground in
Congo.
On the HBO website there are links
and suggestions about what people can do to
increase awareness around this horror, and to
support these unbelievable women. And my
fondest dream is that everyone who sees it will
know that as individuals they can do more.
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