Devil’s Bargain: A Journey into the Small Arms Trade Director: Shelley Saywell, Canada, 2008, 89 minutes
Thursday May 28 | 6:30PM | Vancity Theatre
Canadian Premiere
Small weapons like pistols and rifles are the real weapons of mass destruction: each year, they’re used to kill some 500,000 people worldwide, including right here in the Lower Mainland. Starting in the gun markets of Somalia, Canadian filmmaker Shelley Saywell takes us to a region where guns are making life a misery of violence and fear. But no guns are made in Somalia. From France to South Africa, from Bosnia to Moldova, the USA and Canada, we travel around the world to examine how the guns slip from legal to illegal markets, via the so-called Grey Zone. Devil’s Bargain exposes the deepest undercrofts of international weapons trade, including a visit to one of the most sinister trade shows, an American weapons expo. Saywell gets surprising access to everyone from dealers, to pilots, to end-users, to victims, bearing witness to an unregulated trade. Not only are the statistics shocking in this incredibly researched film, but also shocking is how international laws are ignored to maintain this hugely successful business.
When 200,000 AK47s go missing from Bosnia stockpiles and are flown on illegal flights to “who-knows-where”, activists push initiatives to curb the trade at the UN. But the call for a treaty similar to the Land Mines Treaty is blocked.
In the film, we learn that small weapons aren’t destroyed after a war, but rather channeled to other areas of conflict, sometimes smuggled in the bodies of animals. We also learn how the weapons trade stands in the way of constructive economic development in third-world countries. Although the West is responsible as long as the US continues to provide Africa with weapons, responsibility also lies with individual men around the world who continue to rape and kill with western weapons. Through interviews, archival footage, and material she shot herself around the world, Saywell makes a passionate plea against the weapons trade.
Director’s Biography
Shelley Saywell is a Canadian documentary filmmaker whose films focus on social political issues. She has won numerous international awards including an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism and has been short-listed for the Academy Awards. In Canada, her work has garnered three Hot Docs and three Gemini Awards. Saywell has personally been honoured with UNESCO’s Gandhi Silver Medal for promoting the culture of peace. Her film Martyr Street, a feature length documentary shot over five years, focusing on life in Hebron, the West Bank, won Best Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs 2006. Other films include Generation Of Hate (Iraq), A Child’s Century Of War, Out Of The Fire, Crimes Of Honour, Legacy Of Terror: The Bombing Of Air India, Kim’s Story: The Road From Vietnam, Rape: A Crime Of War, Fire And Water, No Man’s Land: Women Frontline Journalists, and Shahira.
