Theatre of Violence

Lukasz Konopa, Emil Langballe Denemarken, Duitsland 2023 105 min.

Can a person be held accountable for the crimes he committed as a child soldier? As a nine-year-old boy, Dominic Ongwen was abducted and conscripted into Joseph Kony's army of child soldiers. He was tortured, brainwashed and forced to extreme violence. Some 30 years later, he is the first former child soldier to be indicted in International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. For his lawyer this case is much more than an assignment. As he gathers evidence, he raises important questions about culpability, the legal system and how a community can recover from trauma and deal with returning child soldiers.