Johnny Mad Dog (2008)

Recommended
France
Feature Film
Director: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
Writers: Jacques Fieschi, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, Emmanuel Dongala
Cinematographer: Marc Koninckx
Composer: Jackson Tennesse Fourgeaud
Cast: Christopher Minie, Daisy Victoria Vandy, Dagbeh Tweh, Barry Chernoh, Mohammed Sesay, Joseph Duo

Sauvaire’s disturbing and distinctly upsetting look at the use of child soldiers in an unnamed African civil war (implicitly Liberia) follows the bloody progress of two teenagers, with very different but equally horrible existences – one a 15-year-old soldier, shooting his way across the country, and the other a displaced young girl, desperate to keep her family together – highlighting the emotional and physical toll of such conflicts. Iain.Stott