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The Other Side of the Country

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A Film by Catherine Hébert

A visually exquisite, meditative immersion into a Uganda ravaged by 20 years of war. When expressive means serve as a denunciation.

The population is the battleground in “one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world,” where war continues between rebels and the Ugandan government. As rebels abduct and force children and adults into their ranks, thousands flood into towns searching for security. In response, the government forces 1.7 million people into camps in an attempt to cut off the rebel’s supplies and recruits. Instead of protection, the camps offer disease and death. Politically crisp and salient, the film captures the realities of war in northern Uganda through the interconnected stories of five people, including: a mother turned activist after her daughter’s abduction; a young girl traveling miles daily looking for a safe place to sleep; a 7 year old boy who moved onto the streets to survive; and an increasingly outspoken and courageous man whose job takes him to the heart of the war. The film powerfully elucidates what it means for people to live through a war carried out by rebels and played down and drawn out by a complicit government. Shot entirely onsite and told exclusively through the images, voices and perspectives of Ugandans.

Critic excerpts – The Other Side of the Country 

A film as remarkable for its content as its form, turning the spotlight on a people’s suffering and revealing the astonishing level of government inaction.

La Côte, Switzerland
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In the high quality of the camera work and her relationships with the people, Catherine Hébert has brought off the challenge she told us she had set herself: to make a film that was both “political and poetic”.

Télérama, France
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The DP’s work here is exceptional – respectful of the people being filmed, with instincts that are sure and perfectly suited to the low-key approach adopted by Catherine Hébert, who has chosen to film from the perspective of the women and children whose lives have been completely uprooted by the civil war.
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Qui fait quoi, Canada

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