Child Soldiers in Nepal Get Help from Local Filmmakers

Child Soldiers in Nepal Get Help from Local Filmmakers
By Cassie Bouldin

Decatur, GA (June 23, 2008) – A team of Atlanta-based filmmakers is raising awareness for child soldiers in Nepal, and they’re winning awards in the process.

“This is a story that no one wants to hear because it is gruesome and it’s unbearably sad,” says Robert Koenig, President of Adventure Production Pictures. “We as Americans can’t imagine this type of brutality against a child, and sadly most Americans are unaware of the humanitarian crisis raging in Nepal.”

Koenig and his colleagues spent 12 weeks in Nepal interviewing children as young as 10 years old who were once ran away from home or were kidnapped and forced to fight for Maoist Guerillas. Filmmakers interviewed several of former child soldiers during the making of “Returned: Child Soldiers of Nepal’s Maoist Army”.

“No one wants to discuss this openly, especially on camera and it’s extremely dangerous to try to interview anyone in Nepal on this issue,” says Robert Koenig, Emmy-Award Nominated Producer & Director. “We were stonewalled and it was very difficult to get anyone on camera, for fear of retaliation.”

According to Human Rights Watch, Maoist guerillas have continued using child soldiers, and even recruited more children, despite signing a comprehensive peace agreement with the Nepali government almost two years ago.

“I witnessed the effects of this in person, during the past two years I’ve spent in Nepal working with Transcultural Psychosocial Organization Nepal,” says the documentary’s Director of Research Brandon Kohrt. Kohrt is a medical anthropologist at Emory University. “The saddest part is that after military service the children become outcasts and they can’t find work. Many are forced into abusive child marriages or run away to India.”

“Returned: Child Soldiers of Nepal’s Maoist Army” is a documentary video that follows several Nepali youths as they attempt to reintegrate back into civil society after their association with armed groups linked to the “People’s War.”

A preview of the film can be seen on You Tube. The film will debut during DocuFest, which takes place in Atlanta this August. In November it will be screened during the Society for Visual Anthropology's annual Film, Video and Interactive Media Festival as “Best Student Film”. It will also play during the United Nations Association Film Festival Film this fall.


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To arrange an interview with Robert Koenig or Brandon Kohrt, please contact Cassie Bouldin by phone at 727-209-1745 or by email at cassie@savvybuzz.com.

“Returned” with be screened on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 11:40 AM during SVA Film Festival. The award ceremony will take place at the annual in San Francisco on November 19.