(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)October 4, 2012

(MAHWAH, NJ)- Director Rebecca Cohen led a Skype discussion of the film War Don Don, at Ramapo College of New Jersey on October 4. The screening was cosponsored by the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Communications major’s Cinematheque series. A mostly student audience of 200 participated in the event.

War Don Don, Richman Cohen’s directorial debut, follows the war crimes trial of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel leader Issa Sesay. It explores the complex relationship between individual accountability, collective reconciliation and the limits of international justice. While the people of Sierra Leone were relieved in 2002 when the 10-year violent war was over (exclaimed as “war don don” in the Krio language), painful memories of murder, systematic rape and dismemberment could not be set aside.

Rebecca Richman Cohen is an Emmy Award nominated filmmaker and a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School. She interned as an investigator at the Bronx Defenders and continued to do investigative work at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Between trips to Sierra Leone, she has been adjunct faculty at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and American University’s Human Rights Institute. Rebecca graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies and with a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, where she now teaches.

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