The Devil Came on Horseback

Brian Steidle—a former U.S. Marine captain turned unarmed observer, who left the military in 2004 to take a six-month stint as a monitor in Sudan for the African Union—found himself in many situations (some caught on film) where a gun in his hand might have saved hundreds from an unspeakable death during the genocide in Darfur. But Steidle could only watch helplessly as notorious Janjaweed militias rode unobstructed in trucks and on horseback into one village after another, bludgeoning children, raping women, and burning everyone and everything in sight. The Devil Came on Horseback, directed by Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, is a shockingly graphic documentary detailing the horrors of Darfur, built around Steidle's enormous catalog of photographs, together with eyewitness reports that leave no doubt that the slaughter of Sudanese by the country's Arab-controlled government was and is a systemic evil. But the film also tells a story of the transformation of a self-sufficient, somewhat-detached young American male into a reluctant awareness of the Western world's weak response to Darfur. At 32, the weight of his Darfur experience drove Steidle to take both his photos and his facts to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof (who wrote a remarkable series on Darfur), cable news channels, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and the public itself in numerous speaking engagements. The fact that so little has come from these efforts has disillusioned Steidle, but while he once planned to sail the world at the age of 35, he is now a man on a mission. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include the bonus short film “Supporting Survivors” by Global Grassroots (12 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a powerful film.] (T. Keogh)