Coming to NYC’s Bronx Documentary Center this Saturday, September 6: FIRST TO FALL
Rachel Beth Anderson and Tim Grucza’s portrait of Libyan expatriates turned rebels debuted at IDFA last year. It has gone on to screen at Human Rights Watch, Biografilm, Hot Springs Doc, Beirut, and Rio, among other events. This special screening, in collaboration with Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC), serves as a fundraiser in memory of slain journalist James Foley.
Clued in via social media to the popular uprising against Muammar Gaddafi and the dictator’s brutal retaliation, Hamid and Tarek, young Libyans living in Montreal, decide to head to Benghazi to join the action. Despite having no combat training, they joke while enjoying chocolate snacks upon their arrival that they’ll get by on their experience playing video games – a signal of their youth and naïveté which will soon be put to the test. Hamid is permitted to travel to Misrata, where he’ll train, while the more portly, younger Tarek is forced to stay behind, initially unable to realize his “dream” of battle. While there’s appeal in the scenes showcasing the young men’s friendship, full of both moments of tenderness and puerile mockery, their time apart underscores how they cope with, and come of age against, the danger they’ve thrust themselves into. Anderson and Grucza follow their separate tracks for several months, as Hamid’s attempts to use humor and bravado eventually give way to disillusionment, while Tarek, finally reunited with his friend, shows more vulnerability and apprehension, yet ultimately risks his safety to try to see his family in another city, with sobering results.
what (not) to doc 