Beasts of No Nation

Beasts of No Nation (2015) is set in an unnamed West African country. Civil war reaches Agu's village, his family is killed, and he is left alone in the forest. A rebel unit finds him and trains him as a child soldier. The rest of the film is what he becomes inside that unit. The source is Uzodinma Iweala's novel. Cary Joji Fukunaga wrote the screenplay, directed, and shot it himself. He worked on the project for seven years. Filming began on 5 June 2014 in Ghana's Eastern Region, at Koforidua and Akwidaa. Abraham Attah plays Agu; he was found at auditions in Ghana and had never acted. Idris Elba plays the Commandant. Its distribution was a turning point for the industry. Netflix bought worldwide rights for about twelve million dollars and released it simultaneously in cinemas and on the platform on 16 October 2015. That eliminated the release window cinemas were used to, and the four largest chains in the United States boycotted it; it could only play in independent venues. It was Netflix's first original feature. Abraham Attah won the Marcello Mastroianni Award at Venice. Idris Elba was nominated for the BAFTA and the Golden Globe, and won the SAG award. It runs 137 minutes. Good for: films about war and childhood, Idris Elba, and powerful photography. Less good for: the violence and the abuse the child soldiers endure are extremely heavy. The country is never named and the politics of the war go unexplained, a choice that was criticised. At 137 minutes the final section repeats itself.