We Come as Friends

WE COME AS FRIENDS is a modern odyssey, a dizzying, science fiction-like journey into the heart of Africa. At the moment when the Sudan, the continent’s biggest country, is being divided into two nations, an old ‘civilizing’ pathology re-emerges - that of colonialism, clash of empires, and yet new episodes of bloody (and holy) wars over land and resources. The director takes us on this voyage in his tiny, self-made flying machine out of tin and canvas, he leads us into most improbable locations and into people’s thoughts and dreams, in both stunning and heartbreaking ways. Chinese oil workers, UN peacekeepers, Sudanese warlords, and American evangelists ironically weave common ground in this documentary.