Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival: "Heart of Fire"

[Lydia Leftcoast]

Child soldiers have been in the news in recent years, and this harrowing European-co-production is based on the life of a little girl who was a child soldier in Eritrea in the 1970s. After her mother's death, Awet grows up in an orphanage run by Italian nuns. Although she is safe, well-fed, and even doted upon by one of the nuns, she longs for a family. Well, the old saying about being careful what you wish for applies here, because one day, the mother superior tells her that her sister Freweyni has come to take her to their father.

The much anticipated life with her father turns out to be a nightmare. He has remarried, and his second wife shows gross favoritism for her own children and makes Awet and Freweyni work like slaves. One day, he tells the girls to follow him to an encampment of guerrillas fighting against Ethiopian domination. Then he leaves them there.

Life in the camp is brutal, and while Awet at first idolizes the stunning looking woman who is one of the top commanders (I remember reading that the Eritream liberation movement was unusual for its strong women leaders), she gradually becomes disillusioned, especially after she first sees combat and death close up. She constantly gets into trouble for refusing to follow the rules as the guerrilla unit's situation becomes more desperate.

I like film festivals like this because they show stories that I've never seen before. This is one that is, as they say, "ripped from the headlines." The cast of unknowns ably portrays the combination of cameraderie and cruelty (and sometimes cluelessness) that is typical of these kinds of movements, and the little girl who plays Awet displays a mix of innocence, idealism, and defiant intelligence.