Pray the Devil Back to Hell chronicles the remarkable story of the courageous Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shattered country.

Thousands of women - ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim - came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war. Their actions were a critical element in bringing about a agreement during the stalled peace talks.

A story of sacrifice, unity and transcendence, Pray the Devil Back to Hell honors the strength and perseverence of the women of Liberia. Inspiring, uplifting, and most of all motivating, it is a compelling testimony of how grassroots activism can alter the history of nations.



The Filmmakers

Gini Reticker (Director) is the producer of Asylum, an Academy Award® - nominated 20 minute short focusing on the story of a Ghanian woman who fled FGM to seek political asylum in the U.S. She produced and directed the Emmy Award-winning documentary Ladies First (for the PBS series Wide Angle), which focuses on the role of women in rebuilding post-genocide Rwanda. She has also directed The Class of 2006, which spotlights the first fifty women in Morocco to graduate from an imam academy in Rabat.

Reticker’s other work includes:

• A Decade Under the Influence (winner of a National Review Board Award and an Emmy nomination for Best Documentary)
• Out of the Darkness: Women and Depression (winner of both an Emmy and a Gracie Award)
• Blazes of Light, an update on women and HIV (Gracie Award recipient and an Emmy nomination)

Before becoming a producer and director, Reticker served as an editor on the renowned documentary Roger & Me, as well as The Awful Truth: The Romantic Comedy, PBS American Cinema Series, National PBS Broadcast 1995; and Fire From the Mountain, which premiered at the New York Film Festival, and played at the 1987 Sundance Film Festival before being nominated for an Emmy.

Abigail E. Disney (Producer is Founder and the President of the Daphne Foundation, a progressive, social change Foundation that makes grants to grassroots, community-based organizations working with low-income communities in New York City. Over the years, the Daphne foundation has provided more than five million dollars in general operating support grants, along with grants for technical assistance, and infrastructure improvement.

Abigail is also Vice Chair of the board of Shamrock Holdings Incorporated, an investment company that runs fund in private equity, real estate and stocks. Abigail has also spoken to a wide variety of women’s groups, community foundations and financial professionals across the country and internationally about the power of activist philanthropy and the importance of pursuing a life of engaged and intelligent volunteerism.

Abby serves on the boards of the White House Project, and the Global Fund for Women, and the Fund for the City of New York, as well as on the advisory boards of the Association to Benefit Children, and the HIV Law Project. She is currently co-producing, with Gini Reticker, a series for Wide Angle and WNET tentatively called “Women and Children First” about the changing role of women in conflict worldwide.

Kirsten Johnson's (Director of Photography) film, "Deadline", (co-directed with Katy Chevigny), premiered at Sundance in 2004 and was one of the first independent documentaries to be acquired by a major network (NBC). "Innocent Until Proven Guilty", which she also directed, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and was broadcast on HBO in 1999.

As a Director of Photography, she has worked with directors such as Raoul Peck, Barbara Kopple, Michael Moore, and Kirby Dick. Her cinematography is featured in “Fahrenheit 9/11”, Academy and Emmy Award-nominated “Asylum”, Emmy-winning “Ladies First”, and Sundance premiere documentaries, "This Film is Not Yet Rated", "American Standoff", and "Derrida".

A solo show of her still photography, “Cabinet of Curiosity” was exhibited at The Miami Museum of Science, and a chapter is dedicated to her work in the recently-published book, “The Art of the Documentary”. She has traveled and worked extensively in 13 countries throughout Africa and 38 countries around the world.

The Cast

Leymah Gbowee was a 17 year-old girl when the war first came to Monrovia. As she says, she turned, "from a child into an adult in a matter of hours." As the war dragged on, Leymah had difficulty focusing on anything but her thwarted opportunities to go to college, and out of bitterness she dodged any political or social involvement. But as time wore on she came to see that it would be up to the citizens of Liberia, especially its women, to bring the country back from the insanity of civil war. She trained as a trauma counselor and worked with the ex-child soldiers of Taylor's army. The more she worked with them the more she came to see that they, too, were were victims.

Leymah joined the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) and quickly rose to leadership thanks to her leadership and organizing skills. She brought all the women of the Christian Churches together into a group called the Christian Women's Initiative and began issuing a series of calls for peace. Soon she formed a coalition with the women in the Muslim organizations in Monrovia and eventually Liberian Mass Action for Peace came into being.

Under Leymah's leadership, the group managed to force a meeting with Charles Taylor and extract a promise from him to attend peace talks in Ghana. She then led a delegation of Liberian women to Ghana to continue to apply pressure on the warring factions during the peace process. Leymah has since been awarded the Blue Ribbon for Peace by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and is building Women, Peace and Security Africa, a women's peace building organization in Ghana that will act to build relationships across the West African Sub region in support of women's capacity to prevent, avert and end conflicts.

Etweda “Sugars” Cooper is one of the doyennes of the Liberian women’s movement and is known for speaking out. In 1994, during one of the darkest hours of the civil war in Liberia, she and other women, tired of being victimized and frustrated at the stalemate in the peace process, founded the Liberia Women Initiative to advocate for disarmament and free and fair elections, and also to bring pressure to bear on stakeholders for the inclusion of women in negotiating a settlement of the Liberian conflict.

Throughout fourteen years of civil war, she used mass action including picketing, sit ins and marches involving grassroots and professional women and their groups to attract world attention to the plight of women and children and to urge the international community to take action to end the war. As a strategist for the Liberian Women peace activities under the auspices of Women In Peace-Building Network, WIPNET, Sugars was unrelenting in lobbying factional leaders through visits, dialoguing and pleading with them to resolve the stalemate in the Accra Peace Talks in 2003, urging them to agree to a ceasefire and to constitute a transitional government.

Vaiba Flomo was working with the Lutheran Church’s trauma healing program when Leymah came to intern with the program and the two quickly became good friends. Vaiba, haunted by the constant reminders of war - children dying from hunger or being abandoned because their parents couldn’t feed them - began to press Leymah to mobilize the women of Liberia, because, as she says, “there’s not a single woman in Liberia who will tell you that she doesn’t have pain from the crisis.”

Together with Leymah, they worked to bring the Christian and Muslim women’s groups together. After encountering initial reluctance to engage with the other faith, Vaiba developed the message: “Can the bullet pick and choose? Does the bullet know Christian from Muslim?” Reluctance faded into action, and the women began their campaign.

To this day, Vaiba works with victims of trauma. And she marvels at what the women managed to achieve. “Sometimes when I really think on the work,” she says, “I’m like ‘wow, just two little country African girls’ dream has become so big’.”

Asatu Bah Kenneth has been a police officer for 25 years - since before the war began. As the president of the Liberia Female Law Enforcement Association, Asatu was invited to the first meeting of WIPNET and then to the launch of the Christian Women's Initiative. She was so moved by what she heard that she stood up and pledged to mobilize the Muslim women of Liberia to help bring peace to Liberia. And she did, creating the Liberian Muslim Women’s Organization. Liberian Mass Action for Peace came into being when the two organizations joined. It was the first time Christian and Muslim women had worked together in Liberia.

Asatu’s position in the police service gave her access to intelligence about the war. On one occasion, as the war was closing in on Monrovia, Asatu called a meeting with Leymah, Sugars and Janet and other key members of WIPNET. After that meeting the women issued the all-important position statement that they would eventually take to their meeting with Charles Taylor urging him to sit down at the peace table with the rebels.

Her nickname is the “stabilizer” because she doesn’t take sides. Today she is Liberia’s Deputy Chief of Police, (the Chief of Police is also a woman) and is focused on bringing more women into the security sector. She is proud that her profession allows her to be part of the international peace-building community

Etty Weah was one of the hundreds of ordinary women who became involved with WIPNET and the Liberian Mass Action for Peace. She was one of the many women who wore white and sat on the field day in and day out. Rain or shine. Bullets or no bullets.

Before the war, she used to sell food in front of her house in one of the suburbs of Monrovia. As a regular church-goer she responded to a call from the Christian Women's Initiative to become involved in Liberian Mass Action for Peace and got to know Leymah. She was moved to attend the meeting because she deemed all Liberian women to be victims. As the war drew closer to Monrovia, and as the mother of two boys, she also feared for all the children who would be conscripted.

Janet Johnson Bryant was a journalist. Much of the time, she worked for the Catholic radio station, Radio Veritas in Monrovia. Her beat was the Executive Mansion, occupied by Charles Taylor, who had a virtual stranglehold over the media. Journalists were often openly bribed during press conferences. She also hosted a radio show about women’s issues.

Janet met the women of WIPNET when she reported on them for a story. She soon became part of their outreach and advocacy program. Like Asatu, she used her position to garner important, strategic information that benefited WIPNET.

In particular, Janet helped launch the Liberian Mass Action for Peace. Together with Leymah, Sugars and Asatu she helped draft the first press release calling for an immediate ceasefire and for all warring factions to sit down at the peace table. Janet then broadcast the message announcing the first meeting of the women in the field opposite Taylor’s house. Hundreds of women showed up and stayed.

She now lives in Lowell, MA.

Please email Fork Films at info@praythedevilbacktohell.com for more information

www.PrayTheDevilBackToHell.com