See Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars on PBS's P.O.V.

“Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars” Transform Tragedy Into Inspiring Music, Tuesday, June 26 on PBS’s P.O.V. Series

Documentary Co-produced by Ice Cube

“It’s as easy to fall in love with these guys as it was with the Buena Vista Social Club.” – Vanessa Juarez, Newsweek

The P.O.V. series (a cinema term for “point of view”) celebrates its 20th year on PBS starting Tuesday, June 19, 2007. P.O.V. is American television’s longest-running independent documentary series. The 20th season kicks off with two films, Rain in a Dry Land (June 19) and Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars (June 26), scheduled to coincide with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) World Refugee Day (June 20). P.O.V. is broadcast Tuesdays at 10 p.m. (check local listings), June through September on PBS, with primetime specials in the fall and winter.

If the refugee is today’s tragic icon of a war-ravaged world, then Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, a reggae-inflected band born in the camps of West Africa, represents a real-life story of survival and hope. The six-member Refugee All Stars came together in Guinea after civil war forced them from their native Sierra Leone. Traumatized by physical injuries and the brutal loss of family and community, they fight back with the only means they have—music. The result is a tableau of tragedy transformed by the band’s inspiring determination to sing and be heard. Ice Cube is one of the executive producers of the film, which is a Diverse Voices Project co-production.

Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars chronicles the band over three years, from Guinean refugee camps back to war-ravaged Sierra Leone, where they realize the dream of recording their first studio album. And so begins a musical phenomenon that is making the world hear the voices of West Africa’s refugees, while drawing the accolades of Keith Richards, Paul McCartney, Ice Cube and Joe Perry.

Related news: The band is on tour in the U.S. with performances in Detroit, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities. See www.sierraleonesrefugeeallstars.com for details. Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars will also appear alongside R.E.M., U2, Green Day and others on the upcoming double-disc benefit compilation of John Lennon songs. Collaborating with Aerosmith on “Give Peace a Chance,” Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur releases June 12. Nationwide distribution of the acclaimed Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars documentary will follow in early August via Red Envelope Entertainment, a subsidiary of Netflix.

Diverse in age and character, from Reuben M. Koroma, the sage, 42-year old songwriter and guiding light of the group, to Black Nature, an orphaned teenage rapper, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars have a common bond in the loss and displacement caused by their homeland’s civil war, and a shared belief in the transformative power of music.

Filmmakers: This is Zach Niles and Banker White’s first feature film. They both live in San Francisco. Zach, from Vermont, was part of the production and promotion of some of the largest rock and roll tours (The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Madonna, Simon and Garfunkel) from 1998 -2004. In 2001 he was the associate producer for the eight-part television series “Live at the Fillmore.” He has lived and worked in South Africa and Cameroon. He says, “Even amidst their unimaginable hardships, we knew the All Stars’ story would be not only a celebration of what is beautiful about Africa, but what is beautiful about the human spirit.”

Banker, originally from Boston, is a multi-disciplinary artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been a writer-director for many short films, and from 1994-96 he helped start a learning center in Ghana, the Kokrobitey institute. “Reuben said that the band had been writing and practicing all along, and were just waiting for us to arrive,” says Banker. He really was writing songs for the whole world to hear.”

P.O.V. Web: The Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars companion Web site www.pbs.org/pov/sierraleone offers a streaming video trailer of the film, an interview with filmmakers Zach Niles and Banker White (video, podcast and text); a list of related Web sites, organizations and books; a downloadable discussion guide and classroom activity; and more about life on tour with the band in exclusive video shot by the filmmakers after the film was completed.

P.O.V.: Produced by American Documentary, Inc. and celebrating its 20th season on PBS in 2007, the award-winning P.O.V. series is the longest-running showcase on television to feature the work of America's best contemporary-issue independent filmmakers. Airing on PBS on Tuesdays at 10 p.m., June through September, with primetime specials during the year, P.O.V. has brought more than 250 documentaries to millions nationwide, and has a Webby Award-winning online series, P.O.V.'s Borders. Since 1988, P.O.V. has pioneered the art of presentation and outreach using independent nonfiction media to build new communities in conversation about today's most pressing social issues. More information about P.O.V is available at www.pbs.org/pov.

Major funding for P.O.V. is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Ford Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America, PBS and public television viewers. Funding for P.O.V.'s Diverse Voices Project is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. P.O.V. is presented by a consortium of PBS stations including KCET Los Angeles, WGBH Boston, and Thirteen/WNET New York.