view one of the following films: The Devil’s Miner (VuDu), Stolen Childhoods (Vimeo), The Price of Free (YouTube), or Beasts of No Nation (Netflix)

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view one of the following films: The Devil’s Miner (VuDu), Stolen Childhoods (Vimeo), The Price of Free (YouTube), or Beasts of No Nation (Netflix). After watching the film and reflecting upon it, you are required to write a critical review of the film, which should be approximately 3 page in length. Each film has specific questions below.

*Please note: these films all focus on child labour and come with a strong trigger warning. They all feature explicit and troubling content. Depending upon your background and lived experiences, some are likely to be more troubling than others are.

**Should you feel uncomfortable with these film selections, please let me know and we can work out an alternate assignment.

**The Devil’s Miner, Stolen Childhoods, and The Price of Free are documentary films. Beasts of No Nation is a drama/fictional film, but focuses on child soldiers in Africa and is very much reflective of reality

**The questions are designed to have you think critically about the film. Some outside research may help to strengthen your answers or better situate your reflections

The Devil’s Miner

1. Describe daily life for the Vargas brothers. What does their day consist of and how do they struggle through it?
2. Danger is a reality for the Vargas brothers. Describe some the dangers they face and how these dangers are made worse by a total disregard for health and safety. What sort of improvements could be made to keep the miners safer?
3. The Devil plays a central role in this film. What is its connection to these workers and their workplace?
4. Mining occurs in many countries, including Canada. The prevalence of child labour in the mines in Bolivia is staggering, whereas mines in Canada are (at least now), worked by adults. What accounts for the usage of young boys in Bolivia’s mines? How does this compare to the situation in Canada in the early 1800s?
5. What, if anything, do you think will bring about meaningful change for child miners in Bolivia’s mines?

Stolen Childhoods

1. From India to Mexico City and everywhere in between, the film highlights various examples of child labour. What does the film identify as the reasons for the global prevalence of child labour?
2. What are the costs – both hidden and apparent – of child labour?
3. The film offers some optimism in that it suggests that many of the problems of child labour canbe fixed. What suggestions does it offer, and how viable do you think these are?
4. Reflecting on your own position in the world, what do you think you could do on a personal levelto help tackle child labour?

  

The Price of Free

1. What is meant by the film’s title, “The Price of Free?”
2. What are some of the root causes of child labour according to this film?
3. Kailash Satyarthi (and his small team) is one man, and millions of children are enslaved as childlabourers. Certainly not everyone can fight child labour to the same degree as Kailash. Whatdoes this mean for the reduction and eventual elimination of child labour?
4. Why does this film suggest that child labour is so prevalent? Is child labour inevitable in a profit-driven, consumer-based market society (capitalism, we may say)?
5. Reflecting on your own position in the world, what do you think you could do on a personal levelto help tackle child labour?

Beasts of No Nation

1. Although a fictional film, the story of child soldiers in Africa is far from fictional. What sorts of roles/jobs do child soldiers perform in the film? To what degree does this reflect reality/what do real child soldiers do?

2. Leaving/quitting is not an option. Why? How do warlords attract and keep child soldiers?
3. Agu (and all child soldiers) have a complex existence. How so?
4. When rescued, the transition out of their former ‘job’ for child soldiers is more difficult than it is

for many other child labourers? How can child soldiers be transitioned out of the former lives

and still enjoy a meaningful childhood?
5. Child soldiers are a specific type of child labourer. The ways to eliminate this type of child labour

are likely different than eliminating, for example, children working in factories. The film – as it is not a documentary – does not really grapple with how to end this form of child labour. How, then, can this particular type of child labour be eliminated? How is this different from and/or the same as eliminating other forms of child labour?

If you select this film, you may be interested in the following article: Omobowale, Emmanuel Babatunde & Sakiru Damilare Adebayo. "Negotiating War, Trauma and the Banality of Evil: Narrative Aesthetics and the Representation of PTSD in Beasts of No Nation." Ibadan Journal of English Studies 7 (2018): 43-56.