🇸🇸Dream on Hold l Witness

Filmmakers: Casey Kauffman and Tuki Laumea
As South Sudan becomes the world’s newest nation, we follow Angelo on a journey of hope, expectation and disillusion.

After two decades of civil war, tens of thousands of southern Sudanese are returning to their homeland as South Sudan becomes the world’s newest country.

Angelo Angwei is one of them. His mother was displaced by war in 1986 and Angelo grew up in the north. But the 20-year-old embarked on the long journey home, arriving as the south achieved its independence.

“I started to work when I was 10. And I didn’t live a good life there. Some days we went sleeping hungry. that’s why I hate that place …. I saw a lot of things happen. You can’t stay in a place you don’t like. That’s why I’m moving. I didn’t like Khartoum. There isn’t any chance for us there …. They use us like slaves. That’s why we moved from there. We want to be free,” Angelo says.

Angelo, his mother and younger siblings are overjoyed to be making a fresh start where they feel they belong. But the south is not what they expected it to be.

Despite spending every day looking for jobs, Angelo cannot find work to support his family. They are reliant upon intermittent funds that are despatched from his older brother who is still in the north.

Their food comes from handouts from the World Food Programme (WFP): His mother is happy to accept this as a short-term measure, but Angelo is not. Finally, after four months, he decides to return to the north.

“If I go back I can do what I want to do. But here I just look like I’m in a prison. It’s better for me to do something, so life will change. I will do my best to leave this place,” he says, adding that it is not easy to go back to the north because many people have been stopped at the border.

After 10 days Angelo arrives in Khartoum.

“I’m getting my old life back. It’s better than the new life I was trying to create there. Actually, maybe South Sudan will be great after 20 years or 25 years, but for me, I cannot be waiting for all this.”

As South Sudan becomes the world’s newest nation, Witness follows Angelo’s story and his journey of hope, expectation and disillusion.

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