Emmanuel Jal and Karim Chrobog – War Child Movie

The zyOzy Foundation is privileged to have the support of Emmanuel Jal and Karim Chrobog.

ABOUT WAR CHILD MOVIE

War Child, an award-winning documentary directed by C. Karim Chrobog, chronicles the tumultuous, shocking, inspiring, and ultimately hopeful odyssey of Emmanuel Jal. A former child soldier of Sudan’s brutal civil war, he is now an emerging international hip hop star sharing a message of peace for his war-torn land and his beloved Africa. In many ways, Emmanuel Jal’s life story mirrors his homeland: tragedy and terror mingling with hope and restoration.

In the early 1980s at the age of seven, Emmanuel was swept into Sudan’s civil war, becoming one of 10,000 child soldiers conscripted on both sides of the two decade long conflict. After being forced to do many unimaginably horrible things, he escaped the soldier’s camp and trekked for four months through Africa. He was eventually found and adopted by the now legendary British aid worker Emma McCune who had married Sudanese guerrilla commander Riek Machar and convinced him to not employ child soldiers. Shortly after she adopted Emmanuel, Emma died in a suspicious car crash, leaving Emmanuel orphaned once again. He rose from ruthless child soldier to refugee to rap star. He found his own redemption and life mission through a message of peace that represents one of the 21st century’s most inspiring and hopeful journeys, and a metaphor for the broader African predicament.

Emmanuel’s journey is, in many ways, just the beginning. His dream of Gua (peace) in Sudan and prosperity in Africa is threatened by corrupt leaders, genocidal warlords, and Western indifference. Hopefully, Emmanuel’s peace quest to make the world a better place through his music, activism and youth education will prove to be far more significant than Emmanuel’s former war.

War Child tells the story of Emmanuel Jal’s life through his own words and music, and remarkable film footage dating back to his early childhood. Even at the age of seven, Emmanuel’s charisma and charm were so evident that National Geographic focused their own 1980’s reportage on him as spokesperson for the children. Today, as Emmanuel travels through Europe and the US, even into the halls of the US State Department, he takes us through his homelands tormented history of civil war, assesses the prospects for peace after the country’s January 2005 ceasefire agreement, highlights the increasing problem of war children, and shines a light on the growing African hip hop scene that is tackling some of the continent’s most serious ills through its music.

ABOUT EMMANUEL

Emmanuel Jal (born ca. 1980), a former child soldier in Sudan, has won worldwide acclaim for his unique style of hip hop music infused with messages of peace and reconciliation. Emmanuel was taken from his family home in 1987, at the age of seven, and sent to fight with the SPLA rebel army in Sudan’s bloody civil war. For nearly five years, Emmanuel carried and slept next to an AK-47 that was taller than him. He was sent to Ethiopia and Southern Sudan to fight with thousands of other children that were uprooted from their villages.

Emmanuel has been featured in Time magazine, USA Today, The Times, The Guardian, the Washington Post, CNN, Fox, VOA, BBC, MTV, and Sky amongst many other news outlets. As a spokesman for Amnesty International and Oxfam, Emmanuel has held two press briefings at the United Nations in New York making him the first hip hop artist to do so. He also addressed congressional staffers on Capitol Hill about the plight of the people of Darfur and the pressing need for an international response to stop the genocide. Emmanuel has won an American Gospel Award, as well as a community service award in Kenya for his work promoting peace among youth. He has also recently been nominated for the MTVu Good Woodie Award given to activists for their commitments to social causes affecting the greatest change in the world.

His music has been featured in three ER episodes, the documentary God Grew Tired of Us, and most recently in the feature film Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Housoun. Emmanuel is featured and performs in the musically focused film, Call + Response, which debuted October 10th, highlighting the problem of modern slavery around the globe. The film also features Ashley Judd, Julia Ormond, Daryl Hannah, Natasha Bedingfield and Moby.

His autobiography, War Child: A Child Soldier’s Story, will be released by St. Martins Press in February 2009. His most recent album, War Child was released on 12 May 2008 on the Sonic360 label (distributed by ADA Global) with additional production and mix by Neal Pogue (who had done work for various major artists including Outkast, Talib Kweli, and Pharoahe Monch).

Emmanuel recently performed at The V Festival in the UK, the Greenbelt Festival, and the first Black Ball in the UK for Keep a Child Alive (Alicia Keys foundation). He met with Nelson Mandela and performed at the tribute concert for his 90th birthday at Hyde Park in London. Emmanuel is currently touring the East Coast of North America speaking and performing at Colleges and Universities throughout the region.

ABOUT KARIM CHROBOG – DIRECTOR & PRODUCER

War Child is Director and Producer Karim Chrobog’s first feature film. Karim started his career in the media industry at Time Warners international public policy office, where he worked closely with the company’s Warner Bros., HBO, Fortune and Turner divisions. In 2005, Karim launched Tangier Pictures, an independent feature film company based in Washing-ton, DC. Tangier Pictures is currently producing a feature film on Ibn Battutah, a colorful, but forgotten 14th century Moroccan adventurer. He is also working on the documentary Kidnapped, which is based on real-life events and tells the story of his family’s kidnapping during a vacation gone awry in the South of Yemen three years ago.

Karim holds a degree in International Politics and a Certificate in International Business Diplomacy from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is fluent in German, Arabic, and English. He resides in Washington, DC.

PRESS
Where: The Washington Post
When: January 2008
Emmanuel Jal: A Child Of War, a Voice of Peace
A Sudanese ‘Lost Boy’ Hopes to Sing Away the Pain
Short dreadlocks, stylishly askew, frame Emmanuel Jal’s face, aglow with a sheen as brown and smooth as coffee beans. His story as a Sudanese child warrior turned rapper is a tapestry of tragedy and sheer luck. Jal’s narrative flows between darkness and light, the terror that be-fell his family and kinsmen, the horrors he went on to inflict upon others, and a deep-seated desire to set things right.

Where: Newsweek.com
When: October 2007
I Can’t Believe I’m a Human Being
Popular hip-hop artists are not usually the silent type. But Emmanuel Jal, one of Africa’s up-and-coming rappers, is hardly typical. As a preadolescent boy Jal carried an AK-47 for the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army. He once was so hungry in the bush that he was tempted to eat the flesh of a dead friend.

Where: CNN, CNN International, and CNN.Com
When: October 2007
Ex-child soldier raps about hellish life
When he was a little boy in Sudan, singer Emmanuel Jal’s mother was killed. Soldiers raped his sister. At the age of 9, filled with longings for revenge, he became a child soldier. I had a lot of hatred, I had a lot of bitterness he says.