All the Invisible Children

Plot

Omnibus films attained renewed popularity during the 1990s and 2000s; this particular seven-episode film-a-sketch arrived during that period, and involved several top-tiered international filmmakers including John Woo, Spike Lee, Ridley Scott, Emir Kusturica and three others. Each helmer was asked to shoot a segment of between 16-18 minutes in length, for UNICEF, on the subject of exploited and/or underprivileged children around the world. The package opens with "Tanza," helmed by Algerian novelist-cum-filmmaker Mehdi Charef and shot in Burkina Faso. It concerns the 12-year-old female title character - an adolescent freedom fighter - who trollops through the countryside accompanied by young male guerilla fighters who spout off deliberately nonsensical English-language dialogue. Kusturica takes the reins for the second segment, "Blue Gypsy," an overtly comical episode in the vein of Time of the Gypsies about a precocious young boy who makes the split from his alcoholic father and thieving family and goes to live in a juvenile detention center, finding it preferable to home. The third episode, helmed by co-producer Stefano Veneruso and entitled "Ciro," recalls neorealismo with its Naples-set tale of a young boy unloved and systematically neglected by his mother, who resorts to spending time with other neglected children and stealing watches, and then gets caught in the direst of ways. The fourth segment, Spike Lee's delicately-handled "Jesus Children of America," stars Hannah Hodson as Blanca, a young Brooklynite ostracized by her peers because her parents are junkies; when she learns of her HIV-positive status, her world crumbles. For the 5th episode, "Bilu and Joao," Brazilian director Katia Lund casts child actors Francisco Anawake de Freitas and Vera Fernandes as two impoverished tykes whose days involve walking around the outskirts of Sao Paulo and pulling a wooden cart, into which they pile aluminum and paper - but do so joyously, with the courage and grace of two individuals delighting in subhuman work despite the direst of circumstances. For the sixth segment, "Jonathan," Ridley Scott teams up to co-direct with daughter Jordan Scott; the episode stars David Thewlis (Naked) as an emotionally-traumatized war photographer who encounters a band of Eastern European orphans. And the closer, John Woo's "Song Song and Little Cat," studies the contrast between the lives of two young Asian girls from polar opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum: Oi Ruyi is Little Cat, an abjectly impoverished child discovered in the garbage, during infancy, by a homeless man; she grows up helping her discoverer forage for victuals until he dies, leaving her aimless and bereft. Woo cuts between her story and that of Song Song, a wealthy and pampered little girl whose story is equally tragic in its own way, as her parents are undergoing a bitter divorce. Though this film, as indicated, enlisted the support of at least two major Hollywood directors (Scott and Lee) it did encounter extreme difficulty securing U.S. theatrical and ancillary distribution, which effectively kept it out of North America in the years that immediately followed its global release. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Cast

• Adam Bila
• Elysee Rounamba
• Rodrigue Ouattara
• Ahmed Ouedraogo
• Harouna Ouedraogo

Uros Milovanovic; Dragan Zurovac; Vladan Milojevic; Goran R. Vracar; Mihona Vasic; Belic Mita; Dalibor Milenkovic; Miroslav Cvetkovic; Petar Simic; Rosie Perez; Hannah Hodson; Andre Royo; Coati Mundi; Hazelle Goodman; Damaris Edwards; Keteya Ulmer; Ashley Evans; Lavon Malik Green; Petra Quinones; Natalia Roldan; Charles Socarides; Robin Lord Taylor; Lanette Ware; Philicia Wood; Vera Fernandes; Francisco Anawake De Freitas; David Thewlis; Kelly MacDonald; Jack Thompson; Jonathan Jordan Clarke; Joshua Light; Jake Ritzema; Kemal Chakarto; Daniele Vicorito; Emanuele Vicorito; Maria Grazia Cucinotta; Peppe Lanzetta; Ernesto Mahieux; Giovanni Mauriello; Zhao Zicun; Qi Ruyi; Wang Bing; Jiang Wenli; You Yong; Jiang Tong; Shen Chang; Xu Junhai

Credit

Zhang Daxing - Co-producer, Donna Berwick - Costume Designer, Vesna Avramovic - Costume Designer, Andre Simonetti - Costume Designer, Martine Some - Costume Designer, Greg Fay - Costume Designer, Maria Pennacchio - Costume Designer, Mehdi Charef - Director, Emir Kusturica - Director, Spike Lee - Director, Ridley Scott - Director, John Woo - Director, Kátia Lund - Director, Stefano Veneruso - Director, Barry Alexander Brown - Editor, Robert A. Ferretti - Editor, Ugo De Rossi - Editor, Svetolik Mica Zajc - Editor, Yannick Kergoat - Editor, Estevan Santos - Editor, Dayn Williams - Editor, Emir Kusturica - Executive Producer, Francesco Papa - Executive Producer, Bruno Hodebert - Executive Producer, Li Shaohong - Executive Producer, Li Xiaowan - Executive Producer, Caio Gullane - Executive Producer, Raffaele Veneruso - Executive Producer, Jules Dalyk - Executive Producer, Kai-Lu Hsiung - Executive Producer, Terence Blanchard - Composer (Music Score), Antonio Pinto - Composer (Music Score), Dejo Sparavalo - Composer (Music Score), Lin Haiyn - Composer (Music Score), Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos - Composer (Music Score), Nenad Jankovic - Composer (Music Score), Ramin Djawadi - Composer (Music Score), Stribor Kusturica - Composer (Music Score), Rokia Trore - Composer (Music Score), Zoran Marijanovic - Composer (Music Score), Maurizio Capone - Composer (Music Score), Tim Yip - Production Designer, Ben Scott - Production Designer, Sarah Frank - Production Designer, Rasmane Tiendrebeogo - Production Designer, Radovan Markovic - Production Designer, Annalisa Mucci - Production Designer, Vittorio Storaro - Cinematographer, Toca Seabra - Cinematographer, Cliff Charles - Cinematographer, Zeng Nianping - Cinematographer, Jim Whitaker - Cinematographer, Philippe Brelot - Cinematographer, Milorad Glusica - Cinematographer, Terence Chang - Producer, Maria Grazia Cucinotta - Producer, Kátia Lund - Producer, Caio Gullane - Producer, Fabiano Gullane - Producer, Chiara Tilesi - Producer, Stefano Veneruso - Producer, Debora Ivanov - Producer, Ricardo Aidar - Producer, Sookie Foster - Producer, Frances McGivern - Producer, Cinqué Lee - Screenwriter, Joie Lee - Screenwriter, Mehdi Charef - Screenwriter, Li Qiang - Screenwriter, Kátia Lund - Screenwriter, Raffaele Veneruso - Screenwriter, Diego de Silva - Screenwriter, Stribor Kusturica - Screenwriter, Eduardo Tripa - Screenwriter, Liu Weifeng - Costume/Wardrobe, Tina Turner - Featured Music, Chiara Tilesi - From Idea By

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