Juno has acquired the North American rights to the Swiss and German award-winning documentary Cahier Africain by Heidi Specogna. Filmed over seven years, the filmmaker captures the testimonies of 300 Central African women, girls and men revealing what Congolese mercenaries did to them in the wake of the last armed conflict in 2008. The film was awarded the German National Film Award (Lola) for Best Documentary and the Swiss National Film Award for Best Documentary.
Set in northern Mozambique in the 1980s, a train under military guard must transport its passengers and goods 500 miles through guerrilla-held territory during the Mozambican civil war. As rivalries form between the soldiers and friendships between the passengers, violence looms both on board and from the rapacious rebels. With the threat of battle pending, romance blossoms against the stunning backdrop of the African countryside.
Train of Salt and Sugar will be supported by the Railroad Development Corporation with a focus on building awareness for its national theatrical release NYC in early 2018. The film, which won the Italian Critic’s Prize at Locarno in 2016 is based on historical events during the Mozambique civil war during which a single rail line connected the south and the north. Helmer Licinio Azevedo studied under Godard and Ken Loach at the National Film Institute that they founded in Mozambique. Train of Salt and Sugar premiered in 2016 in front of an audience of more than 5,000 in the Piazza Grande in Locarno, where it won the Independent Italian Critics Award for best film.
The body of a homeless woman is found in an abandoned New Hampshire farmhouse. Beside her lies a diary that documents a journey of starvation and the loss of sanity, but told with poignancy, beauty, humor, and spirituality. For nearly four months, Linda Bishop, a prisoner of her own mind, survived on apples and rain water, waiting for God to save her, during one of the coldest winters on record. As her story unfolds from different perspectives, including her own, we learn about our systemic failure to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
Directed by Todd & Jedd Wider. Runtime: 97 minutes
What the critics are saying:
"God Knows Where I Am—beautiful, haunting and supremely moving—is one of the most powerful documentary films I have seen on America's flawed approach to mental health and homelessness. Essential viewing for anyone seeking to understand the systemic failings of our mental healthcare system, it is at once a work of art and a clarion call to end our neglect of people with mental illnesses. The film powerfully conveys how an empty commitment to individual liberty has been substituted for a genuine system of mental health treatment and leaves us with one unavoidable conclusion: "we can and must do better.""
-Paul S. Appelbaum, MD
Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, & Law, Columbia University, Former President of the American Psychiatric Association
"God Knows Where I Am is an extraordinary film that portrays brilliantly the inner reality of an intelligent and creative human being suffering from a serious and life threatening mental illness. The viewer will come away with not only appreciation of this amazing person but also the dysfunction in our system of mental health that allows for preventable tragedy after tragedy. We must do better."
- Steven S. Sharfstein, M.D., President Emeritus, Sheppard Pratt Health System,Former President of the American Psychiatric Association
“A film of great beauty and tenderness that gradually reveals a confounding mental illness, this film is a human story at its heart. Ultimately, it illuminates a hidden problem of vast proportion with an epic yet intimate cinematic vision.”
– Jury, Hot Docs