USA: "Death of two sons" Documentary on the shooting dead of Guinean immigrant shows at African film festival in New York

Record ID: 452149

  • Title: USA: "Death of two sons" Documentary on the shooting dead of Guinean immigrant shows at African film festival in New York
  • Date: 17th May 2007
  • Summary: (AD1) NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) MICAH SCHAFFER, DIRECTOR OF "DEATH OF TWO SONS", SAYING: "The editing was difficult but in a sense we were guided by there's some sort of spiritual connection that has linked these two boy's lives together and it's not always something that's easy to verbalize, or describe, but just the way that their lives came together and tied together, there was almost something unseen and spiritual that guided that. So, in that sense the literal comparisons about justice or about the way we handle things politically became a lot easier, because there was just this simple human connection."
  • Embargoed: 1st June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA7IHXH2IN15A3PNSG8GDB42HHH
  • Story Text: A documentary about a Guinean immigrant shot dead by New York City police officers in 1999, shows at the African Film Festival in New York.

    When Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo was shot dead by New York City policers in 1999, it caused an uproar with minority groups that asserted that it was a race based killing.
    Seven years later, American film-maker Micah Schaffer has made a documentary that presents an unusual perspective on the incident, by paralleling Diallo's death with the death a year later in Guinea of an American Peace Corps volunteer who had lived with Diallo's family in Guinea.
    "Death Of Two Sons" features at the ongoing New York African Film Festival, which showcases films about Africa and the African diaspora.
    Schaffer said that with the making of this film he wanted to highlight the different values placed upon people from different background.
    "In making 'Death of Two Sons', I really wanted to highlight the way that as a world society, we tend to value life differently depending on where the person's from, what colour they are, how rich they are. So, when Amadou Diallo was killed in 1999 by police officers who were ultimately acquitted, I found a pretty amazing parallel with an American that lived in his home village in Guinea, and who died in the same year. So, I set out to investigate it and that became 'Death of Two Sons'," Schaffer said.
    Minority groups across the city spoke out against Diallo's killing saying that he was killed because of the colour of his skin. The policemen said they thought Diallo was reaching for a gun in his pocket, when he was actually just reaching for his wallet.
    Less than a year later Jesse Thyne died. An American Peace Corps volunteer, who lived and worked with Diallo's family in his home village in Guinea but never knew Diallo. Thyne was killed in a vehicle accident in Guinea.
    Schaffer explained that while the police officers who killed Diallo were acquitted, in Guinea, the driver of the vehicle that killed Thyne in the accident, was sent to prison for a few years. Schaffer's point of view is that some sort of justice was still meted out in Guinea but not so in America.
    Schaffer said the access he had to members in both Diallo's and Thyne's family helped greatly in telling the story of the two young men in his documentary.
    This enabled him to tell a more personal tale, rather than just a political look at the death of these two young men.
    In tying the stories of the together, Schaffer said that the editing was a challenge but that he felt the spiritual connection between the two became the glue that held the narrative together.
    "The editing was difficult but in a sense we were guided by there's some sort of spiritual connection that has linked these two boy's lives together and it's not always something that's easy to verbalize, or describe, but just the way that their lives came together and tied together, there was almost something unseen and spiritual that guided that. So, in that sense the literal comparisons about justice or about the way we handle things politically became a lot easier, because there was just this simple human connection.," said Schaffer.
    "Death of Two Sons", made in 2006, has been shown at several film festivals.

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