Megan Mylan, director of the documentary Lost Boys of Sudan, and Joseph Deng, one of the Sudanese exiles known as the "lost boys," will be at the Princeton Public Library after the 10 a.m. screening on Friday, November 17, to respond to questions from the audience in the library's first floor Community Room.
The event will be the first of two showings of the critically acclaimed documentary on Friday. The second will take place at 7:30 p.m. on the campus of Princeton University, in McCosh Hall.
Ms. Mylan, who has been making films for over a decade, was drawn to the lost boys story when she first heard of their journey and the dangers they had encountered — fending off lions at the age of six, witnessing the killings of their parents, for example.
"As a documentary filmmaker, I am constantly on the look out for compelling stories, especially those involving human rights," said Ms. Mylan in a phone interview, Tuesday.
The New York-based filmmaker was immediately drawn to a subject that combined a classic film journey with the important international story of an under-reported civil war in Sudan, not to mention the aspect of the boys' coming to America and encountering a culture very different from their own.
That part of their journey held some surprises, said Ms. Mylan. In areas where the local community was made aware of their presence and they immediately engaged with education through high school or community college, most of the boys settled well.
In some cases, however, that didn't happen, demonstrating how difficult it is to truly take part in the "American Dream."
Lost Boys of Sudan was first broadcast nationwide in September of 2004. It won an Independent Spirit Award and was nominated for two national Emmy awards.
Ms. Mylan had imagined from the film's success and the ensuing press coverage that each boy would be a mini-celebrity in his new home, but more than a few remained isolated, she said.
The boys settled in almost every state save Hawaii, she said, and it was hard to see how lonely and isolating life for immigrants to the United States can be, even for individuals as driven, charismatic, and eager to connect with people as Joseph, Santino, and Peter.
"The Sudanese lost boys and the film have become wonderful ambassadors for other refugees," she said. "I'm very encouraged that people who view the documentary look beyond the story of these children to the situation for all refugees."
Lost Boys
"Lost Boys" was the name given to a group of Southern Sudanese youth by United Nations aid workers in the late 1980s. The thousands of children who fled were predominately boys which accounts for the small number of girls, less than 100, among the 3,800 youths resettled in the U.S.
Lost Boys of Sudan tells the story of orphans Santino Chuor and Peter Dut, who were among the thousands of other children, who walked hundreds of miles to reach a refugee camp in Kenya. The film documents their arrival in America, where they are confronted with the abundance and alienation of contemporary suburbia.
Now in their early 20s, Santino and Peter are in college: Santino in San Jose, California, enrolled full-time in community college with the help of a scholarship from one of the film's viewers, and Peter at Green Mountain College in Vermont.
Joseph Deng
Now resident in Souderton, about 40 minutes from Philadelphia, Joseph Deng was among the boys who fled to Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp and arrived in the United States in November 2000.
"When I first arrived in Philadelphia, I was amazed, especially when I started high school," he said.
While the noise and activity level in the hallways seemed to Mr. Deng to be chaotic at first, he soon settled into high school, where he found the American slang to be a challenge. "The language was mystifying," he said. "When I first heard the term 'cool,' I thought I was being asked whether I needed a coat."
Now 23, Mr. Deng is a part-time student at New Horizon Computer Learning Center, and works full-time as a computer technician for an automotive company.
"I miss my parents and my siblings," he said, "and the culture of the extended family." His parents are still living in Africa, where he has two brothers, a sister, two stepsisters and a stepbrother. He visited in 2004, his first trip back, first to Uganda and then by bus to Nakuru in Kenya to visit his sister. From there, he traveled to the refugee camp to visit his mother and then to a remote village in Southern Sudan to visit his father.
Secretary of the South Sudanese Association of Philadelphia, Mr. Deng started a non-profit organization to raise money to build a school in a remote village in southern Sudan: www.forgottenvillageinsudan.org.
Darfur
Lost Boys of Sudan is being shown as part of a national campaign to raise local public awareness and support for refugees and the continuing humanitarian crisis in Darfur where the sorts of militia attacks that destroyed the "Lost Boys" families and villages continue today.
In Sudan's Darfur, village life is being devastated and a whole generation of children exposed to unimaginable horrors, losing their families and their childhoods to war.
A portion of the 160 seats in the library's Community Room will be reserved for Princeton High School students, including members of Raising Awareness Destination: Darfur (RADD), a student group that meets monthly at the library.
To reserve one of the remaining seats, call (609) 924-9529, ext. 240. For more information on library programs and services, visit www.princetonlibrary.org. For more information on the evening screening, call (609) 986-7464. For more information about Lost Boys of Sudan, visit www.lostboysfilm.com.