FLASHPOINT ACADEMY FACULTY MEMBER ARMANDO IBANEZ COMPLETES 5-MINUTE SHORT ABOUT CONTINUING GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

This 5-minute short is about raising awareness of the ongoing genocide in Darfur, which has been a festering issue dating back to the civil war in Sudan. Warring factions continue to ravage this poverty-stricken African nation. One of the Lost Boys, Peter Bul, a native of the Darfur region of Sudan and now a resident of Chicago, recalls his harrowing escape when he was a child, and was forced to flee his burning village. Bul and hundreds of children—known as the Lost Boys—trekked through dangerous territory, mines, shootings, bombings and faced near starvation. Ultimately, some of them made it to safety. Yet, many did not. Many children died as a result of violence and starvation.

Organizations in the United States are working hard at making sure that Americans don’t forget of the ongoing genocide—a term the US government uses in classifying the unchecked violence in Darfur—and do their part in helping stop the violence. In this short, representatives of four organizations are interviewed, which are from Amnesty International, Council for a Parliament of World Religions, and the Sudanese Community Center.

This film is a precursor to a feature documentary now in production, Darfur—Hope Amid Catastrophe. Both projects are productions of Flashpoint Studios, affiliated with Flashpoint The Academy of Media Arts and Sciences of Chicago.