A: I started making documentary films when I was in college … what drew me to it was the people’s stories … in documentary filmmaking, it’s a very creative hands-on process. It’s almost like being an artist in some ways. You actually get to do and feel and touch and make the story happen …
Q: What inspired you to make The Devil Came on Horseback?
A: I heard about Brian through his sister, Gretchen … She told me what he’d been witnessing [as an unarmed observer] and that he was taking these photographs … partly what Annie and I both got from Brian’s perspective is that he’s not a typical hero or do-gooder … It was his transformation that drew us to his story and we needed a way to get into telling the story of Darfur. He’s accessible to an American audience. One thing we’ve learned from making films is that you have to know who your audience is. If you want a film on American television or in the theaters, you have to a have a protagonist people can identify with. He was that for us. Purely, it was the photographs, and just knowing we had access to such material, we thought we could make a movie out of it. We had to animate a lot of the photographs to bring them to life …
Q: Was Brian hesitant to do this film?
A: He was open to exposing the photographs in any way possible … he’s cautious, rightly so, and protective of his identity … he feels there’s a security risk for himself personally. But he was very open about it …
Q: We talked about how horrific the photos were. How did you process all that emotionally?
A: For me, I was like a doctor in some ways. After the first immediate shock, I just looked at the images and tried to distance myself emotionally … but the one image of the baby lying in the grain, maybe because I have a two-year-old, really got me. I personalized those images. It would get me. Sometimes I would just cry … I asked my editor, “Do you ever just cry?” And he said, “Yes, I just find myself unexpectedly moved” … as editors you can be detached from the material … but when you really look at the people, at the pants they’re wearing, the shoes on their feet, it is very personal …
Q: Did you ever consider interviewing some of the lost boys or is that a whole other story?
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