Cry Freetown is a 2000

2000 in film

The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.The top grosser worldwide was Mission: Impossible II. Domestically in North America, Gladiator won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor ....

 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 directed by Sorious Samura

Sorious Samura

Sorious Samura is a Sierra Leonean journalist. He is best known for two CNN documentary films: Cry Freetown and Exodus from Africa . The self-funded Cry Freetown depicts the most brutal period of the civil war in Sierra Leone with RUF rebels capturing the capital city . The film won, among other...

. It is an account of the victims of the Sierra Leone Civil War

Sierra Leone Civil War

The Sierra Leone Civil War began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front , with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia , intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government...

 and features footage of the battle for Freetown, Sierra Leone in January 1999. It was broadcast on CNN International

CNN International

CNN International is an international English language television network that carries news, current affairs, politics, opinions, and business programming worldwide. CNN is one of the world's largest news organizations. It is owned by Time Warner, and is affiliated with CNN, which is mainly...

 on February 3, 2000. The film was produced with the assistance of CNN Productions and Insight News Television. Awards for the film include the 2001 silver award at the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Awards.