Capt. Brian Steidle had just left the U.S. Marine Corps in 2003 and was looking for a job. On the Internet he found a job posting by the African Union, to monitor the cease-fire in the 20-year civil war in Sudan.
What Steidle saw was a genocide in progress. Villages in Darfur, a province in Sudan's west side, were being systematically looted and burned, and their residents killed or displaced. (The most recent figures show at least 400,000 killed and some 2.5 million displaced.) The culprits were a militia group called the Janjaweed (the name translates to "devil on a horse"), which received weapons and tactical support from the Sudanese government (though the government has always denied this).
In six months in Sudan, Steidle took thousands of photos and helped draft reports to the African Union chronicling the bloodshed. He was convinced that if the world knew what was going on, the outcry would be devastating and immediate. Instead, Steidle learned that of the 80 or so reports his team filed, only four reached the U.S. embassy in Khartoum.
"It's as if history gave us a chance to redeem ourselves after Rwanda," Steidle said, referring to the 1994 mass murders in that African country, "and we're failing again."
Co-directors Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern (who made the 2006 Sundance Film Festival entry "The Trials of Darryl Hunt") blend compelling video and news reports to elegantly explain the complexities of Sudan's history, as well as the tepid international response to the killings. The filmmakers also use interviews with Steidle to track his political awakening as he watches nations dither about whether what's happening is a genocide - something his photos reveal in the most stark terms.
These photos are the heart of "The Devil Came on Horseback." They cannot be viewed without flinching, but they must be seen by as many people as possible.
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* SEAN P. MEANS can be reached at movies@sltrib.com or 801-257-8602. Send comments about this review to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
The Devil Came on Horseback
WHERE: Tower Theatre.
WHEN: Opens today. (A panel discussion about the Darfur crisis will follow tonight¹s 7 p.m. screening.)
RATING: Not rated, but probably R for horrific images of violence.
RUNNING TIME: 85 minutes.
BOTTOM LINE: This documentary about the genocide in Darfur is hard to watch and impossible to forget.
