Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Documentary Details Liberian Women's Successful Nonviolence Campaign
Some political documentaries suffer from overselling the urgency of their agenda, but director Gini Reticker's Pray the Devil Back to Hell nicely underplays the significance of its subject�the 2003 nonviolent protest by thousands of Liberian women that brought down warlord president Charles Taylor. Focusing on interviews with several of the movement's leaders, Reticker mixes in archival footage while explaining how these women, of both Christian and Muslim backgrounds, rallied to demand the end of the bloody civil war waged between Taylor's regime (with its child armies) and the country's rebel factions. On camera, the organizers are largely unremarkable, and Reticker smartly refrains from turning Devil into a canonization or (worse) a simplistic you-go-girl celebration of calm feminine strength trumping brutal masculine aggression. Instead, the film's slightly dry detailing of the major incidents that led to Taylor's eventual exile complements the protestors' impassioned but unshowy resolve to build momentum for their shows of defiance. Reticker offers perhaps a too-narrow focus on this historical moment, but Pray the Devil remembers the golden rule of moviemaking�rather than tell, it shows, and what it shows is quietly affecting. — Tim Grierson, The Village Voice
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Sun February 1, 2009, 7:00 only, Muenzinger Auditorium
USA, 2008, English, Color, 72 min, unrated, 35mm (1.85:1) • official site
Tickets
10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission.
$7 w/UCB student ID,
$7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.
Parking
Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the
Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters
along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.
RTD Bus
Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus
International Film Series
(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.
First Person Cinema
(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.
C.U. Film Program
(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil
Grillo.
Celebrating Stan
Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.
C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts
Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.