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Two members of non profit organization Femisphera Olga Šilhová and Lenka Klicperová organized a journalistic trip to Democratic republic of Congo in November 2008. The main goal of the trip was to publish photographic, textual and also film material about the problematic of mass rape in the eastern part of the above mentioned country. The war aimed mainly at the economic interests has been raging there over ten years.
The civil war in Democratic republic of Congo claimed approximately four million lives since its beginning. It is one of the most tragic and forgotten conflict in the world. Besides the dead the war chooses its victims also among the women and children, who are being brutally raped every day. Not only the members of the militia contribute in such crimes, but also the Congolese soldiers commit these terrible acts. Every man is an enemy, who has be feared. The physical injury goes along with psychic trauma and social stigma, which usually results in rejection of the own family or a husband.
The aim of three weeks trip was to get into the eastern part of Democratic republic of Congo, which was at that time very unstable and tormented by heavy clashes. Despite the unfavourable situation everything was finally achieved as originally planned - they managed to visit the provincial area Bunyakiri and to record the stories of local women. Both participants were able to make the portraits as well as the photographic and film material. This project appeared many times in the media, being presented in the magazines, television as well as in the Czech radio, which enabled to rise the informativeness of the Congolese war and its consequences to the Czech public in general. Almost all of the media performances of this unique project are available on the Femisphera website www.femisphera.com in the section Femisphera in the media. The individual stories and reports not only from the Kando village can be read in the section FemiFocus....Reports, interviews, stories. You can see the photographs in the Femisphera Photogallery.
The documentary The Tear of Congo was made by director Petr Kašpar. It has 40 minutes, with english (german, french) subtitles.
More about film http://slzykonga.cz/.
Documentary Tears of Congo premiered on September 8, 2009 in Municipal Library of Prague.
We would like to express our thanks to Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Brussels Airliness for financial support of this project.
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