The Art of Flight

The Sudanese Army kills between 250 and 300 villagers every day. Militia war criminals kidnap women and children and turn them into war slaves. The civil war in Sudan is one of the longest-lasting conflicts in modern history - it just entered its 22nd year - and has taken the lives of two million people, forcing four million others to flee their homeland and seek refuge around the world. These amazing statistics puzzled a young American journalist, who wanted to tell an intriguing story that would make a difference. He, as the central figure and the narrator in the film, calls Sudan "hell on earth," while Osama Bin Laden calls it "home." Through the personal story of this journalist and filmmaker, we follow the dramatic lives of several Sudanese refugees and aid workers based in Egypt. With a certain dose of self-irony and by keeping a very critical eye on the international aid system, the filmmaker expresses his inner conflict of defining the boundaries between being a human and a professional journalist. Combining black-and-white images with colour shots, fast with slow motion, archival footage, flashy editing and great uplifting and spiritual music, several human stories are told in one, posing important questions about life and death, suffering and sacrifice.