General Butt Naked, a former warlord in West Africa, was once called one of the most evil men in the world. He is said to have a hand in about 20,000 deaths during the recent war in Liberia.
But today the admitted murderer is trying to turn his life around. “The Redemption of General Butt Naked” follows Joshua Milton Blahyi as he seeks forgiveness from those he harmed during one of West Africa’s darkest eras.
“He was one of the more notorious perpetrators from the war,” filmmaker Eric Strauss said.
The film is entered in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Documentary competition.
Strauss said he first learned of Blahyi several years ago while reading a book about working in conflict zones.
“He had turned his life around and had become this evangelical preacher who was wandering the streets of Monrovia preaching peace and reconciliation,” Strauss said in a telephone interview. “Just this small blurb sort of caught my attention. If this was for real, it just seemed like a fascinating opportunity to explore these issues of personal change and redemption and reconciliation and justice through this story of one man’s journey.”
Strauss went to Ghana to meet Blahyi in 2005.
“Was this a one-beat story or was there really some complexity here and was this guy really truly who he said he was?” Strauss said. “I began to build a relationship with him.”
At the time, Daniele Anastasion worked with Strauss at National Geographic in Washington, D.C. She signed on to help tell Blahyi’s story.
“Our hope is that audiences will be conflicted, confused I think that if people have differing opinions about Joshua, about justice, about this very process of seeking forgiveness, I think to some extent we’ll consider that to be a marker of success,” Anastasion said.
Blahyi was known in the 1990s as General Butt Naked because he and his troops would charge into battle almost completely nude. He was blamed for exploiting child soldiers in West Africa.
“Any perpetrator can say they are sorry for what they have done and apologize for it So much of the film is really focused on that and attempting to understand the character,” Strauss said. “[Blahyi] claims to have made the change. How has that change affected him? Is he really somebody who has recognized the wrongdoings of his past?”
The filmmakers followed Blahyi through Liberia as the former warlord sought forgiveness from his victims and their families. Poignant interviews are interlaced with footage from the nation’s bloody civil war.
“We always wanted to craft the film in a way that no matter where we personally came down on Joshua or what we thought about him, we were always very careful, hoping to craft a story where viewers could really decide for themselves whether they believed him or not,” Anastasion said. “Our intent was never to convince viewers whether or not he was genuine.”
Blahyi has seen the documentary, she added.
“He didn’t demand that his story be told by unquestioning devotees to his story He felt that we had basically told the truth,” Anastasion said. “There were some things in the film that were hard, obviously, for him to watch. There was a lot of criticism.”
“The Redemption of General Butt Naked” screens Jan. 22 at 9 p.m. at Temple Theatre, Jan. 23 at 9 a.m. at the Egyptian, Jan. 27 at noon at the Yarrow and Jan. 29 at noon at Holiday Village Cinema.