A documentary showed UF students Tuesday that there's a place in the world where people communicate with bullets and fire, and mothers are left without children.
"Darfur Now" was shown to UF documentary graduate students by one of its producers, Mark Harris. Its aim was to spread a call for peace in the Darfur region of Sudan in Africa, where about 200,000 people have died.
In 2003, a rebel group began attacking the government under the claim that the government was opposing black Africans in favor of Muslims, stated a report from BBC News.
The government admitted creating "self-defense militias" following the attacks and denied ties to a group called Janjaweed that is accused of trying to rid the region of black Africans.
Harris said he felt a moral obligation to make the documentary, but it wasn't easy.
"How are you going to make a film about genocide that's going to get people to come to the theater?" Harris asked.
It took about 17 months to create "Darfur Now," which had about a ,2 million budget, he said.
The documentary opened Nov. 2 in Los Angeles and New York and has been shown in several other big cities since then.
Six people, connected by their efforts to bring peace to Darfur, tell their stories in the film.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, shares his struggle to bring justice to the Sudanese people.
By the end of the film, Moreno-Ocampo had gathered 100 pages of documents to prove the Sudanese government had a part in the hundreds of thousands of murders. On April 22, he released warrants for two of the country's leaders, Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb.
Ahmed Mohammed Abakar, the head sheik in a Sudanese refugee camp, talked about the frustration of hopeless and hungry victims.
Adam Sterling, a 24-year-old activist in California, rallied the state's Legislature to stop investing in companies that fund the violence in Sudan.
