Event

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

International Women's Film Festival
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Guest Speakers: To be announced

Members: $10 / Public: $15 / Includes Reception

Wednesday, March 21 at 7pm

In 2003, Liberia was devastated by decades of political dislocation, humanitarian crisis, and urban warfare. President Charles Taylor had emptied the country's pockets as creatively as any dictator in memory. His rise to power led to thousands of deaths and a nation in ruins. Out of the wreckage, more than two-thousand Christian and Muslim women throughout the country began to organize to bring to an end to the fighting. At great personal risk they protested creatively and persistently for peace in the worst days of this brutal and protracted conflict. The actions of the united Christian and Muslim women who prevailed over warlords and warriors to halt the decades-long fighting that claimed their fathers, brothers, husbands and children is powerfully explored in Gini Reticker's lucid and impassioned film. Reticker documents the remarkable collaboration of two independent groups: Christian church women and Muslim Mosque women. The women (who included future Nobel Peace Prize winners Leymah Gbowee and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is now the President of Liberia) formed lasting friendships that transcended race and religion. Reticker, whose documentaries have all concerned women, presents their calm visages and voices of reason in dramatic contrast to the unctuous public doublespeak and self-serving sound bites of the marauding warlords. A story of sacrifice, unity and transcendence, Pray the Devil Back to Hell honors the strength and perseverence of the women of Liberia. Inspiring, uplifting, and most of all motivating, it is a compelling testimony of how grassroots activism can alter the history of nations. Vic Skolnick USA, 2008, 72 min.

A powerful documentary about a group of African Christian and Muslim women who overcame prejudices about each other and joined together to end the civil war in Liberia
Co-Presented by the Huntington League of Women Voters