The story of Ezra
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0:00 - 0:03This is very strange for me, because I’m not used to doing this:
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0:03 - 0:06I usually stand on the other side of the light,
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0:06 - 0:13and now I'm feeling the pressure I put other people into. And it's hard ...
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0:13 - 0:16The previous speaker has, I think,
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0:16 - 0:22really painted a very good background as to
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0:22 - 0:28the impulse behind my work and what drives me, and my sense of loss,
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0:28 - 0:34and trying to find the answer to the big questions.
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0:34 - 0:39But this, for me, I mean, coming here to do this,
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0:39 - 0:47feels like -- there’s this sculptor that I like very much, Giacometti,
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0:47 - 0:52who after many years of living in France -- and learning, you know,
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0:52 - 0:59studying and working -- he returned home and he was asked, what did you produce?
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0:59 - 1:03What have you done with so many years of being away?
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1:03 - 1:06And he sort of, he showed a handful of figurines.
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1:06 - 1:11And obviously they were, "Is this what you spent years doing?
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1:11 - 1:16And we expected huge masterpieces!"
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1:16 - 1:22But what struck me is the understanding that in those little pieces
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1:22 - 1:28was the culmination of a man’s life, search, thought, everything --
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1:28 - 1:30just in a reduced, small version.
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1:30 - 1:32In a way, I feel like that.
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1:32 - 1:35I feel like I’m coming home to talk about
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1:35 - 1:39what I’ve been away doing for 20 years.
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1:39 - 1:45And I will start with a brief taster of what I’ve been about:
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1:45 - 1:47a handful of films -- nothing much,
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1:47 - 1:50two feature films and a handful of short films.
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1:50 - 1:54So, we’ll go with the first piece.
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1:54 - 2:03(Video) Woman: "I destroy lives," mum said.
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2:03 - 2:05I love her, you know.
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2:07 - 2:09She’s not even my real mum.
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2:09 - 2:13My real mum and dad dumped me
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2:13 - 2:15and fucked off back to Nigeria.
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2:20 - 2:24The devil is in me, Court.
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2:24 - 2:26Court: Sleep.
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2:28 - 2:30Woman: Have you ever been?
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2:30 - 2:32Court: Where?
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2:32 - 2:34Woman: Nigeria.
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2:36 - 2:38Court: Never.
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2:38 - 2:41My mum wanted to,
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2:41 - 2:43couldn’t afford it.
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2:44 - 2:46Woman: Wish I could.
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2:46 - 2:49I have this feeling I’d be happy there.
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2:56 - 2:58Why does everyone get rid of me?
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3:00 - 3:02Court: I don't want to get rid of you.
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3:02 - 3:06Woman: You don't need me.
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3:06 - 3:09You’re just too blind to see it now.
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3:11 - 3:14Boy: What do you do all day?
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3:15 - 3:17Marcus: Read.
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3:17 - 3:19Boy: Don't you get bored?
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3:19 - 3:22And how come you ain't got a job anyway?
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3:22 - 3:24Marcus: I am retired.
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3:24 - 3:26Boy: So?
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3:26 - 3:29Marcus: So I've done my bit for Queen and country, now I work for myself.
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3:29 - 3:31Boy: No, now you sit around like a bum all day.
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3:31 - 3:34Marcus: Because I do what I like?
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3:34 - 3:36Boy: Look man, reading don't feed no one.
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3:36 - 3:38And it particularly don't feed your spliff habit.
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3:38 - 3:42Marcus: It feeds my mind and my soul.
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3:42 - 3:49Boy: Arguing with you is a waste of time, Marcus.
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3:49 - 3:51Marcus: You’re a rapper, am I right?
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3:51 - 3:52Boy: Yeah.
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3:52 - 3:53Marcus: A modern day poet.
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3:53 - 3:54Boy: Yeah, you could say that.
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3:54 - 3:56Marcus: So what do you talk about?
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3:56 - 3:58Boy: What's that supposed to mean?
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3:58 - 4:00Marcus: Simple. What do you rap about?
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4:00 - 4:02Boy: Reality, man.
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4:02 - 4:03Marcus: Whose reality?
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4:03 - 4:05Boy: My fuckin' reality.
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4:05 - 4:07Marcus: Tell me about your reality.
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4:07 - 4:11Boy: Racism, oppression, people like me not getting a break in life.
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4:11 - 4:14Marcus: So what solutions do you offer? I mean, the job of a poet is not just --
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4:14 - 4:17Boy: Man, fight the power! Simple: blow the motherfuckers out of the sky.
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4:17 - 4:18Marcus: With an AK-47?
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4:18 - 4:20Boy: Man, if I had one, too fuckin' right.
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4:20 - 4:23Marcus: And how many soldiers have you recruited to fight this war with you?
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4:23 - 4:26Boy: Oh, Marcus, you know what I mean.
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4:26 - 4:28Marcus: When a man resorts to profanities,
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4:28 - 4:32it’s a sure sign of his inability to express himself.
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4:32 - 4:35Boy: See man, you’re just taking the piss out of me now.
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4:35 - 4:37Marcus: The Panthers.
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4:37 - 4:38Boy: Panthers?
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4:38 - 4:42Ass kickin' guys who were fed up with all that white supremacist, powers-that-be bullshit,
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4:42 - 4:45and just went in there and kicked everybody's arse.
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4:45 - 4:49Fuckin’ wicked, man. I saw the movie. Bad! What?
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4:49 - 4:53Director 1: I saw his last film.
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4:53 - 4:55Épuise, right?
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4:55 - 4:56Woman 1: Yes.
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4:56 - 5:03D1: Not to make a bad joke, but it was really épuisé.
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5:03 - 5:10Epuisé -- tired, exhausted, fed up.
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5:10 - 5:12Director 2: Can you not shut up?
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5:12 - 5:14Now, you talk straight to me, what’s wrong with my films?
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5:14 - 5:16Let’s go.
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5:16 - 5:17W1: They suck.
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5:17 - 5:19Woman 2: They suck? What about yours?
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5:20 - 5:23What, what, what, what about, what?
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5:23 - 5:25What do you think about your movie?
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5:25 - 5:27D1: My movies, they are OK, fine.
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5:27 - 5:30They are better than making documentaries no one ever sees.
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5:30 - 5:32What the fuck are you talking about?
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5:32 - 5:35Did you ever move your fuckin' ass from Hollywood
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5:35 - 5:37to go and film something real?
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5:37 - 5:39You make people fuckin' sleep.
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5:39 - 5:41Dream about bullshit.
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5:41 - 5:45(Applause)
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5:45 - 5:50Newton Aduaka: Thank you. The first clip, really, is
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5:50 - 5:54totally trying to capture what cinema is for me,
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5:54 - 5:56and where I'm coming from in terms of cinema.
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5:56 - 6:01The first piece was, really, there's a young woman talking about Nigeria,
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6:01 - 6:04that she has a feeling she'll be happy there.
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6:04 - 6:07These are the sentiments of someone that's been away from home.
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6:07 - 6:10And that was something that I went through, you know, and I'm still going through.
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6:10 - 6:13I've not been home for quite a while, for about five years now.
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6:13 - 6:15I've been away 20 years in total.
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6:17 - 6:20And so it’s really --
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6:20 - 6:26it's really how suddenly, you know, this was made in 1997,
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6:26 - 6:30which is the time of Abacha -- the military dictatorship,
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6:30 - 6:35the worst part of Nigerian history, this post-colonial history.
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6:35 - 6:37So, for this girl to have these dreams
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6:37 - 6:41is simply how we preserve a sense of what home is.
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6:41 - 6:47How -- and it's sort of, perhaps romantic, but I think beautiful,
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6:47 - 6:51because you just need something to hold on to,
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6:51 - 6:54especially in a society where you feel alienated.
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6:54 - 6:57Which takes us to the next piece, where the young man
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6:57 - 7:03talks about lack of opportunity: living as a black person in Europe,
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7:03 - 7:07the glass ceiling that we all know about, that we all talk about,
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7:07 - 7:11and his reality.
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7:11 - 7:13Again, this was my -- this was me talking about --
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7:13 - 7:17this was, again, the time of multiculturalism in the United Kingdom,
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7:17 - 7:20and there was this buzzword -- and it was trying to say,
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7:20 - 7:24what exactly does this multiculturalism mean in the real lives of people?
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7:24 - 7:27And what would a child --
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7:27 - 7:30what does a child like Jamie -- the young boy -- think,
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7:30 - 7:34I mean, with all this anger that's built up inside of him?
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7:34 - 7:36What happens with that?
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7:36 - 7:38What, of course, happens with that is violence,
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7:38 - 7:42which we see when we talk about the ghettos
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7:42 - 7:46and we talk about, you know, South Central L.A. and this kind of stuff,
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7:46 - 7:49and which eventually, when channeled, becomes,
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7:49 - 7:54you know, evolves and manifests itself as riots --
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7:54 - 7:58like the one in France two years ago, where I live,
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7:58 - 8:00which shocked everybody, because everyone thought, "Oh well,
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8:00 - 8:02France is a liberal society."
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8:02 - 8:05But I lived in England for 18 years.
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8:05 - 8:08I've lived in France for about four, and I feel actually
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8:08 - 8:13thrown back 20 years, living in France.
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8:13 - 8:16And then, the third piece. The third piece for me is the question:
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8:16 - 8:19What is cinema to you? What do you do with cinema?
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8:19 - 8:27There's a young director, Hollywood director, with his friends --
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8:27 - 8:30fellow filmmakers -- talking about what cinema means.
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8:30 - 8:34I suppose that will take me to my last piece --
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8:34 - 8:36what cinema means for me.
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8:36 - 8:40My life started as a -- I started life in 1966,
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8:40 - 8:43a few months before the Biafran, which lasted for three years
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8:43 - 8:45and it was three years of war.
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8:45 - 8:48So that whole thing,
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8:48 - 8:54that whole childhood echoes and takes me into the next piece.
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9:04 - 9:07(Video) Voice: Onicha, off to school with your brother.
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9:07 - 9:09Onicha: Yes, mama.
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9:57 - 10:04Commander: Soldiers, you are going to fight a battle,
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10:04 - 10:07so you must get ready and willing to die.
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10:07 - 10:08You must get -- ?
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10:08 - 10:11Child Soldiers: Ready and willing to die.
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10:11 - 10:17C: Success, the change is only coming through the barrel of the gun.
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10:17 - 10:19CS: The barrel of the gun!
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10:19 - 10:20C: This is the gun.
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10:20 - 10:24CS: This is the gun.
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10:24 - 10:26C: This is an AK-47 rifle. This is your life.
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10:26 - 10:32This is your life. This is ... this is ... this is your life.
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10:32 - 10:35Ezra: They give us the special drugs. We call it bubbles.
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10:35 - 10:37Amphetamines.
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10:38 - 10:41Soldiers: Rain come, sun come, soldier man dey go.
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10:41 - 10:44I say rain come, sun come, soldier man dey go.
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10:44 - 10:46We went from one village to another -- three villages.
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10:46 - 10:48I don’t remember how we got there.
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10:48 - 10:51Witness: We walked and walked for two days.
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10:51 - 10:53We didn't eat.
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10:53 - 10:57There was no food, just little rice.
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10:57 - 10:59Without food -- I was sick.
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10:59 - 11:02The injection made us not to have mind.
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11:02 - 11:04God will forgive us.
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11:04 - 11:07He knows we did not know. We did not know!
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11:23 - 11:26Committee Chairman: Do you remember January 6th, 1999?
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11:28 - 11:30Ezra: I don’t remember.
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11:30 - 11:33Various Voices: You will die! You will die! (Screaming)
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11:33 - 11:35Onicha: Ezra! (Ezra: Onicha! Onicha!)
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11:35 - 11:43Various Voices: ♫ We don't need no more trouble ♫
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11:43 - 11:45♫ No more trouble ♫
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11:45 - 11:47They killed my mother.
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11:47 - 11:49The Mende sons of bastards.
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11:49 - 11:51(Shouting)
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11:52 - 11:54Who is she?
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11:54 - 11:55Me.
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11:55 - 11:56Why you giving these to me?
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11:56 - 11:58So you can stop staring at me.
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11:59 - 12:02My story is a little bit complicated.
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12:02 - 12:04I’m interested.
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12:04 - 12:06Mariam is pregnant.
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12:06 - 12:08You know what you are? A crocodile.
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12:08 - 12:10Big mouth. Short legs.
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12:13 - 12:15In front of Rufus you are Ezra the coward.
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12:15 - 12:17He’s not taking care of his troops.
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12:17 - 12:22Troop, pay your last honor. Salute.
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12:22 - 12:24Open your eyes, Ezra.
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12:24 - 12:26A blind man can see that the diamonds end up in his pocket.
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12:26 - 12:34♫ We don't need no more trouble ♫
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12:35 - 12:37Get that idiot out!
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12:38 - 12:41I take you are preparing a major attack?
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12:41 - 12:42This must be the mine.
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12:43 - 12:44Your girl is here.
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12:44 - 12:48Well done, well done.
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12:49 - 12:51That is what you are here for, no?
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12:51 - 12:54You are planning to go back to fight are you?
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12:54 - 13:01♫ We don't need no more trouble ♫
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13:01 - 13:03♫ No more trouble ♫
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13:03 - 13:13♫ We don't need no more trouble ♫
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13:13 - 13:16♫ No more trouble. ♫
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13:16 - 13:19Wake up! Everybody wake up. Road block!
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13:19 - 13:22♫ We don't need no more ... ♫
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13:48 - 13:53Committee Chairman: We hope that, with your help and the help of others, that this commission
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13:53 - 13:58will go a long way towards understanding the causes of the rebel war.
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13:58 - 14:00More than that, begin a healing process and finally to --
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14:00 - 14:06as an act of closure to a terrible period in this country’s history.
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14:06 - 14:07The beginning of hope.
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14:07 - 14:11Mr. Ezra Gelehun, please stand.
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14:19 - 14:24State your name and age for the commission.
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14:24 - 14:26Ezra: My name is Ezra Gelehun.
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14:26 - 14:30I am 15 or 16. I don’t remember.
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14:30 - 14:35Ask my sister, she is the witch, she knows everything.
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14:35 - 14:40(Sister: 16.)
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14:40 - 14:43CC: Mr. Gelehun, I’d like to remind you you’re not on trial here
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14:43 - 14:45for any crimes you committed.
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14:45 - 14:47E: We were fighting for our freedom.
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14:47 - 14:50If killing in a war is a crime,
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14:50 - 14:54then you have to charge every soldier in the world.
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14:54 - 14:58War is a crime, yes, but I did not start it.
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14:58 - 15:02You too are a retired General, not so?
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15:02 - 15:04CC: Yes, correct.
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15:04 - 15:06E: So you too must stand trial then.
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15:06 - 15:10Our government was corrupt.
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15:10 - 15:15Lack of education was their way to control power.
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15:15 - 15:18If I may ask, do you pay for school in your country?
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15:18 - 15:23CC: No, we don’t.
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15:23 - 15:25E: You are richer than us.
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15:25 - 15:28But we pay for school.
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15:29 - 15:31Your country talks about democracy,
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15:31 - 15:35but you support corrupt governments like my own.
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15:35 - 15:38Why? Because you want our diamond.
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15:38 - 15:42Ask if anyone in this room have ever seen real diamond before?
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15:42 - 15:44No.
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15:44 - 15:50CC: Mr. Gelehun, I'd like to remind you, you're not on trial here today.
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15:50 - 15:51You are not on trial.
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15:51 - 15:54E: Then let me go.
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15:54 - 15:57CC: I can't do that, son.
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15:57 - 15:59E: So you are a liar.
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15:59 - 16:01(Applause)
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16:01 - 16:04NA: Thank you. Just very quickly to say that my point really here,
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16:04 - 16:06is that while we’re making all these huge advancements,
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16:06 - 16:12what we're doing, which for me, you know, I think we should --
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16:12 - 16:16Africa should move forward, but we should remember,
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16:16 - 16:18so we do not go back here again.
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16:18 - 16:19Thank you.
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16:19 - 16:21Emeka Okafor: Thank you, Newton.
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16:21 - 16:24(Applause)
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16:24 - 16:28One of the themes that comes through very strongly
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16:28 - 16:38in the piece we just watched is this sense of the psychological trauma of the young
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16:38 - 16:43that have to play this role of being child soldiers.
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16:43 - 16:47And considering where you are coming from,
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16:47 - 16:53and when we consider the extent to which it’s not taken as seriously
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16:53 - 16:57as it should be, what would you have to say about that?
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16:57 - 17:00NA: In the process of my research, I actually spent
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17:00 - 17:03a bit of time in Sierra Leone researching this.
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17:03 - 17:08And I remember I met a lot of child soldiers --
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17:08 - 17:12ex-combatants, as they like to be called.
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17:14 - 17:19I met psychosocial workers who worked with them.
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17:19 - 17:22I met psychiatrists who spent time with them,
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17:22 - 17:25aid workers, NGOs, the whole lot.
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17:25 - 17:29But I remember on the flight back on my last trip,
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17:29 - 17:33I remember breaking down in tears and thinking to myself,
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17:33 - 17:39if any kid in the West, in the western world,
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17:39 - 17:44went through a day of what any of those kids have gone through,
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17:44 - 17:50they will be in therapy for the rest of their natural lives.
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17:50 - 17:55So for me, the thought that we have all these children --
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17:55 - 17:58it’s a generation, we have a whole generation of children --
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17:58 - 18:05who have been put through so much psychological trauma or damage,
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18:05 - 18:07and Africa has to live with that.
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18:07 - 18:09But I’m just saying to factor that in,
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18:09 - 18:12factor that in with all this great advancement,
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18:12 - 18:14all this pronouncement of great achievement.
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18:16 - 18:18That’s really my thinking.
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18:18 - 18:21EO: Well, we thank you again for coming to the TED stage.
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18:21 - 18:23That was a very moving piece.
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18:23 - 18:24NA: Thank you.
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18:24 - 18:25EO: Thank you.
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18:25 - 18:26(Applause)
- Title:
- The story of Ezra
- Speaker:
- Newton Aduaka
- Description:
-
Filmmaker Newton Aduaka shows clips from his powerful, lyrical feature film "Ezra," about a child soldier in Sierra Leone.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 18:26
TED edited English subtitles for The story of Ezra | ||
TED added a translation |