Theater of War, Cinema of Peace

In 2007, Shine a Light collaborated with the Colombian NGO Taller de Vida to develop the first feature-length, fictional film ever made by children who once were soldiers.  The result, Ruleta de la Vida/Life's Roulette, is a powerful movie that has now been shown at film festivals on four continents, and has won some important prizes.  Perhaps more significantly, while on average more than half of children who leave the war return to it, none of the kids who made Life's Roulette have returned to an illegal armed group.  Almost all of them are studying, doing well, and many even continue to work in cinema or social justice movements.

Over the last several years, I have been reflecting on the experience of making the movie and trying to see why it was such an effective tool for art, social change, and personal growth.  Those reflections, mediated through contemporary philosophy and film theory, became Theater of War, Cinema of Peace, a book just published on the Shine a Light website.  You can download it for free at http://www.shinealight.org/Books.html