Forget torture porn and zombies. Bouncing Cats, a documentary about hip-hop in war-ravaged Uganda, is a horror film with a human heart that manages to beat even as it records madness most of us see only in our nightmares.
Video director Nabil Elderkin's 2010 film makes its television premiere Saturday on the Documentary Channel, giving those who missed its circuit run last year a chance to think twice about their comparatively comfortable lives. Ask the Rock Steady Crew's legendary breaker and president, Richard "Crazy Legs" Colón, who – along with native Ugandan Abraham “Abramz” Tekya , founder of Breakdance Project Uganda – anchors Bouncing Cats' exploration of transformative art therapy in a real-world dystopia.
Narrated by Common, Bouncing Cats funnels proceeds to Breakdance Project Uganda in hopes of catalyzing solutions outside the conflict box. Still, it's going to take much more than hip-hop – and President Barack Obama sending in 100 troops to tackle Joseph Kony's pseudo-religious "rape cult" (otherwise known as the Lord's Resistance Army) – before normalcy is restored to the African country. But Bouncing Cats is another moving reminder of what an enormous waste of life and time post-colonial resource wars can be, when there's so much unrestrained creativity to be had instead.
Bouncing Cats airs at 8 p.m. Saturday on the Documentary Channel.
