E-Newsletter 2011

BRYAN SINGLE RECEIVES THE ARMIN T. WEGNER AWARD 2011

Los Angeles – Director/producer Bryan Single recieved the prestigious Armin T. Wegner Humanitarian Award at the 14th Annual Arpa International Film Festival in Hollywood  on September 24, 2011, for his documentary film “Children of War”(USA/Uganda; 2009, 75 minutes).

Bryan Single filmed in the war-zone of northern Uganda over a period of three years. The documentary follows a group of former child soldiers as they escape the battlefield, enter a rehabilitation center, and undergo a process of trauma therapy. Having been abducted from their homes and schools and forced to become fighters by the Lord’s Resistance Army – a quasi-religious militia led by self-proclaimed prophet and war criminal Joseph Kony – the children struggle to confront and break through years of captivity, extreme religious indoctrination, and participation in war crimes with the help of a team of trauma counselors. “Children of War” was world premiered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2010. It won several awards:  “Barbara Hendricks Award” at the International Film Festival on Human Rights in Geneva; “Best Feature/Child’s Advocacy” Award at the Artivist Film Festival in Los Angeles and “Cinema For Peace Award” in Berlin.

Armin T. Wegner’s granddaughters Giulia (right) and Fiammetta Wegner travelled all the way from UK to join the film festival as co-presenters at the award ceremony. They both study social sciences in England and Giulia, the older granddaughter, who has worked on various social development projects in Africa for several years, is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford, where her focus is on community-based natural resources governance for poverty alleviation.