We - Seth, Brice and Teddy - decided to participate in a documentary project competition hosted by Oxfam International called Shooting Poverty.
In this competition, participants were invited to submit documentary treatment proposals on the subject of illegal small arms and their impact on social and economic development.
All of us living in Burundi, we are able to see this dreadful connection first hand, in every day life as it exists in Burundi. So we decided to participate in this international competition, and this is how we came up with: "Bang for your Buck".
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In the 4th poorest country in the world, one thing remains affordable to all: the grenade. |
Why the title? Well, until not long ago a grenade did not cost much more than 1$ (now between 1$ and 3$)and this is undoubtedly the cheapest way to sort most problems out, in this tiny country in the middle of Africa. Without access to reliable police and justice services, and confronted with uncountable sources of conflict due to thirteen years of civil war, ethnic conflicts and population displacements. people too often choose the road to violence to sort out their daily problems. This road, paved with grenades and casualties, is a dead end, and no exit is to be found unless weapons are removed from the hands of the population.
We decided to specifically focus on grenades because they are more commonly used in Burundi than in any other country on the continent. They are cheap, horribly efficient, and they don't discriminate between victims. However they are merely a condensed example of how all weapons destroy societies and jeopardize development around the world.
"Bang for your Buck" is driven by personal accounts of grenade attacks in villages across Buundi. These attacks are symptoms of a pandemic "small arms disease" in this picturesque agricultural nation in the heart of Africa. The story is already here, we will simply capture it.
