Hazel Chandler
Production support
Kimmie follows the journey of Liberian child's rights activist, Kimmie Weeks, 23, as he returns home from exile in the USA for the first time in six years. Kimmie is a very personal journey of confusion, lost money, old enemies and ultimately peace. A strange kind of road movie set against the backdrop of two countries pulling themselves out of war - Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Long Synopsis
Kimmie was just 8 when war broke out in Liberia in 1989. He spent six months in a camp with his mother where he nearly died of starvation and sickness. This experience led him to fight for children and, only a child himself, he spent the next seven years campaigning. When he was 17 he wrote a paper exposing the government's use of children as soldiers; his life was threatened and he fled the country.
He was given asylum in the USA where he spent the next six years. When ex-President Charles Taylor was forced into exile, it was considered safe enough for Kimmie to return home. In January 2005, now aged 23, he returns to Liberia to look at the issues surrounding war-affected children and to face his own demons. Kimmie traces his journey home.