We Come As Friends, directed by Hubert Sauper
Academy Award nominated director Hubert Sauper’s We Come As Friends (2014) is a modern odyssey, a dizzying, science fiction-like journey into the heart of Africa. At the moment when the Sudan, the continent’s biggest country, is being divided into two nations, an old ‘civilizing’ pathology re-emerges — that of colonialism, the clash of empires, and new episodes of bloody (and holy) wars over land and resources. Sauper leads us into improbable locations and into people’s thoughts with his self-made tin and canvas flying machine. Chinese oil workers, UN peacekeepers, Sudanese warlords, and American evangelists ironically weave common ground in this documentary, a complex, profound and humorous cinematic endeavor.