Movie Poster for War Dance
A girl and her mother walk through head-high bush. The path to their destination is not laid out before them; they are guided solely by memory. As they walk, they stumble in sudden ditches and ignore the itch of the brush as it tickles every crevice it meets as they pass.
Suddenly they arrive at their destination. A cross has fallen into the mud and is overtaken by the new brush growing from the grave buried there four years ago. The two women are composed in silence. And then they are not.
The young girl falls to her knees and then cuddles into the ground housing her father’s grave. Her mother tries to raise her, but she bellows with pain and asks to be able to lie there with her Daddy for a moment.
As I watched this scene, I began to cover my eyes. I wanted to look away, to avoid the truth. In fact, when the scene ended and the women return to their refugee camp, I stopped the documentary film called “War Dance” and took a break. Just needed to cry it out. To work through the emotion. To imagine.
And then I remember why I do what I do. Why I make films and take pictures and explore the world. I do it so that audiences can experience what I did today when seeing and feeling a world that is not my own. I do it so that we can remember that the world is large and that others are in need and that we can do something about it.
“War Dance” is about more than just these sad scenes playing out against a backdrop of war-torn Uganda. It is about the inspiration that guides young children who are fatherless, motherless, and without brothers and sisters who once played in the fields with them. This film is about the music and dance of their ancestors and the pride they feel when they compete in the National Music Competition in Uganda. It’s about defying the odds. And it moved me.
As some of you may heard, I have been supporting my dear (and genius) friend Maital in her film project tentatively entitled “Whatint Abafazi: When You Strike a Woman.” Again, I am drawn to the project because it tells the story of those who refuse to be a statistic. Who persevere over hardships I can never imagine. They teach me to be a better person and it is THEY who are the heroes. I look forward to traveling with Maital to South Africa this fall to help her continue telling her amazing story so that others can be inspired as well.
And also exciting, a developing project that would have me traveling to an orphanage in Nepal to document the exchange of stories, love, and education between American families and 17 young girls overcoming the odds to excel in a country where they would otherwise be child slaves. As we apply for funding, work out the details, and make the ends meet- it is the potential of the gut wretching reactions that an audience might have that inspires me.
What a blessing to learn from the stories of those who seem so far away. What a gift to have them share their strength when it seems that they should have none to give. They make me want to keep doing what I do.
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Janelle K. Eagle is infamous for always having her hands tied up in multiple projects simultaneously. She's directed a lot of theater, worked on some films, and raised lots of money for non-profits. She travels all the time and loves to share her videos, photography and writing via this blog. 
