“Triangle of Death” Film Screening, with Director Folleh Shar Tamba

Where: Cypress College Art Gallery

“Join the Marines of 2/24 as they take you on a journey through one of Iraq’s deadliest regions known as The Triangle of Death. Feel what it’s like to survive through a tour of duty during the largest combat engagement since the Vietnam War. Struggle through all the hardships of daily life in a combat environment filled with car bombs, random insurgent attacks, and the possibility of dying for a cause the American public does not fully support. See the horrors of life in a third world country without law and order and a crumbling society desperately in need of leadership. And find out what the media isn’t allowing the American public to know about the most controversial war of our time.” (Quoted from https://vetstreamtv.com)

Interdisciplinary artist/filmmaker Folleh Shar Tamba was born in Chicago and raised in West Africa, where he experienced the horrors of the Liberian Civil War. “Most of my friends were killed,” Tamba states, but “when the Marines showed up, everything stopped.” Returning to Chicago at the age of 17, Tamba continued his education and eventually enlisted in the Marines himself: “I want[ed] to be the guy that takes the gun and fights for something,” he says.[i]

Wounded in combat in Iraq, Tamba was awarded a Purple Heart, and has since produced and directed three award-winning documentaries: The Triangle of Death (Wolf Dog Films, 2009), The Line of Departure (2011), and The Process (2016), which won best documentary short at the 2016 Gary International Black Film Festival.

Tamba uses multiple tools in addition to documentary – including video, installation, poetry, and drawing – to explore the subject of war and fulfill a promise that “art must reflect and respond to the contemporary social issues of the time and the world in which it was created.”[ii] His works have been shown at, among others, the Rome International Film Festival; the Great Lakes International Film Festival; Art Devour Gallery, Chicago; and Artspace, North Carolina.

NOTES

[i] Collins, Courtney. “African Immigrant Turned U.S. Marine Screens War Documentary Sunday.” WAMU, American University Radio. May 13, 2011. Accessed July 27, 2018. https://wamu.org/story/11/05/13/african_immigrant_turned_us_marine_screens_war_documentary_sunday/

[ii] IMDb. “Storyline,” The Process (2016). Accessed July 27, 2018. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5612588/?ref_=nm_knf_t2