Don't Miss Exceptional Movie Focus on a Part of Africa

Commentary

Africa Tree - Cover Copyright 2012

The upcoming October 3, 2014, release of The Good Lie movie should interest a wide audience, not only those involved with refugee or immigrant issues. I hope readers here will make a point to see this movie.   

Resse Witherspoon's dark-haired lead is on the dramatic side, reminiscent of her June Carter Cash role in Walk the Line. She draws more seriously on the comic side that movie-goers remember from Legally Blonde, as The Good Lie trailer shows. The film includes performances by former refugees from Sudan who returned for scenes they had left behind in their homeland.  

I wrote about Sudan and a place called Juba years ago, and named the article "No Place to Call Home." I feel some connection with other parts of Africa, having studied some and walked streets and driven through towns in Zambia and South Africa. I visited those countries as an onlooker with people vitally involved with refugee and migration issues. I tried to listen and observe as fully as possible.

You may see ads for The Good Lie movie and note the Africa tree photo. It's the same kind of tree on the cover of Refugee Was My Name by Mogama (2012), shown also in the lead photo. Sudan (The Good Lie) and Liberia (Refugee Was My Name) have in common certain historical and present-day experiences. 

Regular people today quietly involve themselves with the ongoing millions of refugees and needs for places to call home...safe places. They continue to take part in good answers, however complicated the moving parts of solutions.