A CHILD’S CENTURY OF WAR takes the viewer on a journey through the past century, the bloodiest in history, from the perspective of children. It is an examination of the way in which modern wars have increasingly threatened and targeted children.
We hear their stories in their voices. Establishing parallels between past and present conflicts, the film intercuts the accounts of children currently in danger, with diaries and voices of children in the past. By looking at the way today’s wars indoctrinate children, it is also an eye to the future.
Three contemporary conflicts are the heart of the film. Orphans of the two recent Chechen wars, children growing up on Martyr Street in Hebron (the most dangerous street in the West Bank), and the abducted, raped and amputated children of Sierra Leone. As we listen to the children, their unflinching stories throw a disturbing light on the human condition at the beginning of our new century.