Little Voices

At this very moment in Colombia, there are around a million children who are victims of the armed conflicts that have been disrupting the country for years. Filmmaker Jairo Eduardo Carrillo met up with some of these children and let them tell their life story. He also had them set their memories down in drawings - memories of both the periods before and after their confrontation with violence. Carrillo took these drawings as the basis for this animated documentary, which gives an impression of the abject misery that war subjects children to. They tell heartrending tales: of a carefree rural childhood suddenly cut short when a bomb tears off the limbs of a 10-year-old boy in a fraction of a second; or of a gorilla commander who tempts young boys with money and fine promises, only to take them deep in the jungle to train them against their will to become murderers. The use of language is simple and the drawings depict a childlike world that has nothing to do with political parties or ideologies, but the reality that the children reveal is both moving and far from simplistic.