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SLP Features:  Surreal a glance at a land that no longer exists | Save Darfur | commemorating the Rwanda Genocide

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A Cry for Madiom
ongoing Genocide in the Sudan
one hour documentary featuring the long
forgotten fate of the people of Southern Sudan 

Erez speaks on Madiom and the Darfur Genocide
Wake Up with Co-Op Radio (MP3)
 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 11/05

 
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> REVIEWS | A Cry for Madiom    
 
  Meg Johnstone - TheTyee.ca
Vancouver, BC, Canada
April 28, 200

"A Cry For Madiom achieves something rarely seen in filmmaking: visual lament. In the ancient tradition of sorrow and loss, Madiom is a song of lament --- strikingly offset by the joyful singing of the children and women in the feeding centre. By no means a dirge, it is a song of the beauty and dignity of humanity, and of that loss --- the only fitting response to an inhumane crisis where upwards of 40 children are dying a day and where death is so commonplace it goes nearly unacknowledged.."


Erin Stevens - The Point
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada
February 2, 2005 

"...it powerfully revels the realities of
human suffering, especially that
experienced by children. Inevitably,
nearly the entire discussion group,
including Erez himself, was in tears
by the end."



  Vivienne Nilan - Kathimerini
exclusively available inside the
International Herald Tribune
in Greece and Cyprus
Athens, Greece
June 29, 2005 

"In A Cry for Madiom, named for a little boy whose brilliant smile is one of the film’s rare bright moments, the camera simply observes the plight of the starving.
A Canadian nurse working with an NGO has the appalling task of deciding whether applicants are sufficiently malnourished to qualify for the supplemental feeding program that may save their lives.
Flies crawl over emaciated bodies; skeletal infants suck at empty breasts; the weakest succumb and are buried. That is all there is and it is almost unbearable..."


Dave Amber, newtimesbpb.com
Keeping It Reel
Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival documentaries capture the bizarre and the banal
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA
October 20, 2005

"Madiom Madiok is a 5-year-old boy in southern Sudan, a walking skeleton weighing in at only 15 pounds. His dutiful mother has brought him to a Doctors Without Borders feeding center, where lots of other naked, starving people swat flies and wait for food. In this sad film, you see that only the most severely malnourished are allowed into the center. The 13-year-old encountered one day will be dead the next. A Cry for Madiom is composed of raw, unedited footage from the late '90s shot over several days by an Israeli television journalist who notes that not much has changed in 50 years of drought and political strife. Although the level of suffering is not for the faint of heart, this cry for a boy leaves you wondering about the fate of Madiom (is he still alive five years later?) and what the hell is going on over there now."


  Yoav Bornstein - Galei Zahal
Israel Radio
Tel Aviv, Israel
July 11, 2005  (MP3) (Hebrew audio only)

This radio report, in Hebrew,
summarizes the A Cry for Madiom
experience during the special screening
at the Israel Open University main
campus near Tel Aviv, July 5, 2005.


  Arie Dayan - Haaretz
Israel Daily
Tel Aviv, Israel
July 18, 2005  (Hebrew only)

This article, in Hebrew, summarizes
the unique awareness conference
held around the special screening of
A Cry for Madiom at the Israel Open
University main campus near Tel Aviv,
July 5, 2005.





 
 


2006 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Catalogue
Thessaloniki, Greece
March, 2006

"A Cry for Madiom is a rare experience exposing the shocking harsh conditions of millions of ill-fated internally displaced Sudanese.  the film drops you into a remote feeding center, near the Darfur border, and leaves you there for 24 hours.  To achieve this total sensorial experience, the film is created from mostly untouched, unedited material."


Lot Piscaer - IDFA-Daily
Amsterdam, The Netherland
November 29, 2005


"We’ve all seen images like this before, but you really cannot let Erez Barzilay’s documentairy pass by like any other. Especialy once you realize that the images have been made as far back as 1998, and that the situation hasn’t improved much since."


2005 IDFA Catalogue
Amsterdam, The Netherland
November, 2005

"For a report for CNN in 1998, director Barzilay shot images of a food aid camp of Doctors Without Borders in South Sudan. Drought and looting had brought about large-scale famine in the region. At the time, his story was cut down to a five-and-a-half-minute item. Meanwhile, the situation in this area has not improved; the misery has only expanded to the region of Darfur to the north. Barzilay decided to incorporate the images he shot back then in a documentary about the harrowing and unrelenting fate of the people of South Sudan. The crude footage he shot in the camp is shown almost in its original form, which only adds to the impact of the images. Barzilay films the emaciated mothers and young children who after days of hiking arrive at the camp and have to wait for their registration and - hopefully - some food. Now and then, he asks the waiting people and the doctors questions from behind his camera. Due to the inadequate infrastructure, relief workers cannot supply everyone with food and have to make a selection. Only the gravest cases qualify for daily food aid. The rest, no matter how scrawny they look to us, have to make do with a weekly allotment."


Cindy Chang - MemphisMojo.com
April 25, 2005
Memphis, Tennessee, USA

"The festival included full-length features along with short narratives and animated films ranging from emotionally charged documentaries like Erez Barzilay’s A Cry for Madiom, which examines the harsh reality of South Sudan, to comedic film noirs like UK native Simon Cooper’s Topsoil, which follows leading character Mike as he recounts events leading up to his being buried alive... 

"A Cry for Madiom’s Erez Barzilay hopes that people who have viewed his film will not just enjoy the show, but "act, not just talk about it. There is so much to do - just get updated on the situation, the unbelievable suffering, the senseless killings that still rages in the region [of Sudan]."


2005 AFO Program
Olomouc, Czech Republic
October, 2005

"A testimony about the life and enormous suffering of children living in the country where the longest lasting African war is taking place - South Sudan."







 

 

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