Heart of fire (Feuerherz in its original language) is a German/Austrian coproduction by Italian director Luigi Falorni about a girl soldier in the Eritrean army.
The movie is loosely based in the autobiographical book by Senait Mehari, an Eritrean-born German singer. Born in 1974, Senait Mehari was abandoned by her parents as a baby in an orphanage. But after four years her father returned to get her only to leave her with the rebel troops of the Eritrean Liberation Front during the war with Ethiopia. Senait spent three years in a training camp for child soldiers until she was rescued in 1983 by her uncle and finally ended up living in Germany where she became a popular singer.
This movie has been the center of critics and polemics. On one side it’s the Eritrean government that completely denies that children have ever been used as soldiers in the war against Ethiopia, and also many Eritreans consider even the original story by Senait a complete lie.
On the other side, the producers and the director declare that the movie is not an real account of what happened, not even a faithful translation of the autobiography by Senait. They only used the book as a background for a story about child soldiers and that it could have happened anywhere.
But they tried to make the movie believable, a cross between a documentary and a fiction film, and chose to film it in the original language with real Eritreans they casted in refugee camps. At first they tried to used locations in Eritrea but the government didn’t allow them, so they had to move all the production to Kenya. They also had problems with the actors, since almost all the secondary characters dropped out because they were put under pressure not to be in the film. So they went to a refugee camp where Eritreans lived and cast all the roles with non-professionals. The main character is played by 10-year-old Letekidan Micael, herself a refugee that the director found in Kenya.
 

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to read the book or watch the movie yet but hope that the DVD will be available in the US soon. You can buy the autobiography in German or English (online is at Amazon USA / UK / Germany/ France) and I think the DVD will be released in January 2010 in Europe. I know the film has been shown in the local language with subtitles, as is usually done here in the US, but also dubbed which is customary in some countries like Germany and Spain. Personally I’d prefer the original version to enjoy the actors speaking their language… I can’t post an opinion about the story since I haven’t seen the film yet, but I will try to watch it with a open mind and taking into account the intention of the director.
A film is never real life, no matter how faithful it tries to be, it’s only an artistic interpretation and should be watched with that in mind. Things are omitted or added to enrich the story.
I’ve seen many movies about Argentina that are totally inaccurate and books written by foreigners that have no idea of what they are talking about, but hey!, even Americans spice up their own stories to make them more interesting. I never believe everything I see or read and specially a movie that is supposed to be art. It’s just made to enjoy and sometimes think about the human condition. Anyway, I find it valuable that the movie has been filmed in Africa with Eritrean actors speaking their native language.
Luigi Falorni directed another film before that I did see and that I recommend: The story of the weeping camel.
Here is the trailer of Heart of Fire:

You can read some reviews here:
Screen Daily
Variety
Or wait until I can watch it myself…

AliciA