Balcony Releasing will open PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL, which tells the remarkable but little-known story of a small band of unarmed women who risked their lives to bring peace to Liberia, a nation in West Africa founded as a home for emancipated American slaves, on Friday, November 14 in an exclusive Los Angeles engagement at Laemmle’s Music Hall Theater in Beverly Hills.
Produced by Abigail E. Disney and directed by Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Gini Reticker, who accessed archival footage, American newspaper coverage and the direct testimony of women, this incredible film earned awards at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival (Best Documentary Feature), Silverdocs (Witness Award), Jackson Hole Film Festival (Audience Choice: Documentary), the Traverse City Film Festival (Special Jury Prize: Non-fiction Filmmaking) and most recently at the Heartland Film Festival (Best Documentary). PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL will open in New York on Friday, November 7, followed by a national rollout in Washington, D.C. on November 14, Philadelphia on November 26, Boston on December 5, San Francisco, Berkeley, Atlanta and St. Louis on December 12, with an expansion to Chicago, Seattle, Denver and Portland in January 2009.
Charles Taylor was elected president of Liberia in 1996 and soon proved to be a corrupt dictator. Opposing warlords emerged during his rule to rape, murder and terrorize the citizens of Liberia. Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian woman who had experienced war, had a dream: “To get the women of the church together to pray for peace.” She invited ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and daughters from neighboring churches to start the Christian Women’s Initiative. Asatu Bah Kenneth, a Muslim, became one of Leymah’s supporters and created the Liberian Muslim Women’s Organization. Together this unlikely coalition of Christian and Muslim women prevailed over warlords and warriors to halt the decades-long fighting that claimed their fathers, brothers, husbands and children. Their demonstrations brought about the exile of Taylor and the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – Africa’s first female head of state – and marked the vanguard of a new wave of women taking control of their political destiny around the world. The film features appearances by Leymah Gbowee, Asatu Bah Kenneth, Vaiba Flomo, Janet Johnson Bryant, Etweda Cooper and Etty Weah.