This outstanding and moving film will be shown on Saturday, March 31, 2007, at Chicago’s Landmark Century Center Theater (at Clark and Diversey), as part of a program hosted by WITASWAN (Women in the Audience Supporting Women Artists Now), from 12:30 to 3p.m.  The filmmaker, Felicia Middlebrooks, will be a featured speaker, and answer questions at the conclusion of the showing. Somebody’s Child premiered at the 2005 New York Film/Video Festival. 

First time filmmaker Felicia Middlebrooks serves as producer and director of Somebody’s Child: The Redemption of Rwanda. She is a veteran CBS Radio journalist in Chicago. Her vision brings to the screen a startling and evocative portrait of women on the frontlines of humanity, and young witnesses to the genocide in Rwanda that killed one million and devastated the lives of countless others. 

So many women remain. Women comprise 70% of Rwanda’s population. So many children were left without parents. Rwanda has more children as heads of households than any other place on earth.  

Middlebrooks and her film crew traveled to Rwanda in 2004, ten years after the atrocities of genocide ravaged the land. Archival footage shows the brutality of those bloody days. Fine photography captures the present day, continued struggle towards reconstruction, and the faces of the people moving to healing and restoring their lives.  

People’s courts, of a sort, are arranged where survivors can testify and face those who are accused of crimes against humanity.  

To help build toward a future for the country, business and agriculture is being encouraged, and many women are learning to grow geraniums for essential oils.  

This unflinching and ultimately hopeful film should be available before long on DVD. Be on the lookout for it. It will be a fine short documentary (50 minutes) to show to students, at libraries and for any person or group endeavoring to understand the human condition and spirit.