We Come as Friends is a 2014 Austrian-French documentary film written, directed and produced by Hubert Sauper.[1][2] The film premiered in-competition in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2014.[3][4] It won the Special Jury Award for Cinematic Bravery at the festival.[5][6]
We Come as Friends received mostly positive reviews upon its premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10.[12] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 80 out of 100 from 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[13]
Rob Nelson of Variety wrote in his review that We Come as Friends becomes more disturbing as it goes, building to a terrible crescendo in a series of scenes near the end of the film."[14] Boyd van Hoeij in his review for The Hollywood Reporter called the film "A sobering and superbly edited documentary about South Sudan, a country that became independent in 2011 but turns out to be not so independent after all."[15] Dan Schindel from Nonfics praised the film by saying that "A devastating, haunting, but absolutely necessary travelogue of South Sudan. This film is an instructional in how imperialism in Africa has not died off, but merely taken on a new form."[16]
Chuck Bowen of Slant magazine gave the film four out of five stars and said that "We Come As Friends is terrifyingly direct and intimate. Portraying the neocolonialist exploitation of the recently established South Sudan, director Hubert Sauper devises a metaphor that's both risky and brilliantly evocative."[17] In his review for Slug magazine, Cody Kirkland praised the director Sauper by saying that "Hubert Sauper presents a thought-provoking look inside the war-torn and extremely impoverished mother continent" and called the film "a powerful, troubling and possibly life-changing look into the real people involved in this monumental disaster, and the real consequences of economic and cultural imperialism."[4] On December 1, the film was selected as one of 15 shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[18]
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