In the line of fire

This could be Liberia today..

Johnny, a 15 years old, child-soldier-style rapper, armed to the teeth, is inhabited by vicious dogs he wants to become.
With its small commando, No Good Advice, Small Devil and Young Major, he flies, plundering and slaughters everything that crosses its path. Adolescent watered Hollywood imagery and information that play to cross the war ...
Abbreviated childhoods; an Africa ravaged by senseless wars, people who still try to survive and preserve its share of humanity.

"Kidnapping takes its vilest form as armed children in Liberia commandeer other kids to join their marauding troop" writes Duane Byrge in the Hollywood Reporter

Even if cinema is inventing new ways to tell us that war is hell, this movie takes us by the fiction in the reality of these childrens. These young soldiers are easily malleable because they don't fear the war, they don't understand it. Liberian children who fight in war have between eight and fifteen years old. Those « little warriors » are estimated by the United Nation at least 300 000 childrens.

Children soldiers are not only composed of boys, little girls are forced to fight but also to be used in any situations : cook, care and prostitution are their daily activities.

The festival honored Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire with its Grand Prix for his film Johnny Mad Dog, which was presented to the director by the jury president Abel Ferrara. Johnny Mad Dog was showcased earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section.

Dimitri Morel

Alexandre Biggerstaff