Invisible Children Documentary Response Paper

Invisible Children In the film, "Invisible Children," three young men originally embark on a journey to Sudan to capture video footage of the War in Darfur, but after arriving change their course. Their results were minuscule there and in fear of going home empty handed they traveled from Sudan into Uganda, because they heard thousands of people fled there due to the war. Once in Uganda they reached the city of Gulu where they saw the appalling sight of thousands of kids littered in the streets at night. The children fear abduction from the LRA or the Lord's Resistance Army, so they flee to the streets every night in search of refuge. This has been going on for seventeen years. At this point they realized that this is their new topic and they would have to document this to show the media-shielded world as well to expose how the Uganda Government is handling this. Through their documentation they capture gruesome and disturbing images, videos, and testimonies from people which are results from the LRA causing war and killing thousands of children. Also, countless images and videos are shown of the children that are living in fear and being crammed into small buildings and basements to sleep for the night. They are told at one point that these children being crammed into small rooms are actually starting to become sexually active at very young ages and the use, if any, of protection is with nasty plastic bags from the street. They mainly focus on a small group of boys though, who walk miles every night to sleep in a small shack. They interview them multiple times and ask questions on how they feel about the way they live. All the interviews throughout the film show a story within the story. The stories end with one last testimony from a boy from the group and followed with a call to action from the three men. This is the first film made by the three young men Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole. The amateur style and filming made this fact obvious.