Yesterday I watched Eric Daniel Metzgar’s newest film Reporter, which follows Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof as he traverses the world to cover human rights issues and conflict. The primary journey profiled in the film is a 2007 trip to the Congo. That country has been plagued by poverty and fighting between a multitude of local militias that answer to no government. As Kristof is best known for raising the Darfur genocide to public awareness in the West, so he is trying to do again with the Congolese conflict, where some 4 million have died due to fighting, rape and starvation. One of the most tense scenes in the film is when Kristof, traveling with two aspiring reporters and the film crew, meet with one of the leader of the most feared militia, General Nkunda.

Much of the fighting in Congo is a remnant from the Rwandan conflict of 1994. Some Hutus, the aggressors in the genocide there, fled to Congo and angry Tutsi fighters followed to continue the fight. Nkunda and his followers are Tutsi, and so they would have us believe in their meeting with Kristof, Christians on a divine mission. They proudly sport their “Rebels for Christ” pins in one of the few humorous moments in Reporter.

The film paints a comprehensive portrait of Kristof and his work, and filmmaker Metzgar tries to come to grips with the psychological intricacies of how to make people care about such massive inhumanity and suffering. The film makes a case for the importance of reporters continuing to cover these serious and sensitive issues despite the declining revenues of print news organizations. And as if in honor of the world premiere of the film, the Times reports today that Nkunda has been arrested in a joint Congolese-Rwandan mission to quell the lawlessness between their borders. The article has more details on the true nature of Nkunda’s relationship to the Rwadan government than is revealed by Nkunda or Kristof in Reporter, but the new information makes the time spent with him in the film, in retrospect, all the more creepy.

I’m a bit leary of offering a specific opinion on the film at this point because the dearth of serious issue documentaries here at Sundance is overwhelming. This is definitely a well-done film that attempts to reconcile how we in the US can allow such conflicts to continue. I didn’t find an answer in the film, but I appreciated the asking of the question.

More on the film around the web:
Sundance Channel’s Meet the Filmmaker: Eric Daniel Metzgar
Chud Review
Rooftop Films’ Mark Rosenberg’s Review