Click here to learn more about The Devil Came on Horseback and to view clips of the movie.
Q: Brian gave you access to thousands of photos, but how else did you find such footage?
A: We did a lot of film research … I have to give credit to our associate producer who was on YouTube and found footage from Darfur … I contacted the man who shot the footage from Darfur and he happened to be in New York that day (he was from London) … this young filmmaker just happened to be in Darfur in 2003 … he liked the fact that we had no money and were independent filmmakers; this was the one time it was to our benefit not to have money! … he was our renegade filmmaker. When we heard about and met Brian, Darfur had already been closed off to journalists … we wouldn’t have had as much access as what we were able to get from this person who’d been there from 2003–04.
Q: Of the thousand photographs from Brian, did you feel you couldn’t show certain ones?
A: It was definitely a consideration when we started. We didn’t want to be exploitative with the images—on the other hand we couldn’t not show what’s actually happening over there because that’s the whole point of the movie ... We included the most gripping photographs: The baby shot and lying dead in grain to me are the most heartbreaking photographs … to see bodies desecrated with their eyes plucked out is horrifying … but I think there’s something about the innocence of the children in their everyday lives … especially the last attack that Brian witnessed: they were going about their everyday life and they were just sabotaged, that footage in particular was the most disturbing for me.
Q: And also the idea that people who’d already been displaced (IDC camps) also got attacked …
A: Some people have said, “We wish there were more testimonials from Darfurians in Darfur” … but it’s just footage we didn’t have … there are films focusing on this now [like Chad and refugees there] …
Q: What drew you to documentary filmmaking?
