When worlds are torn apart, it is doctors who are the unsung heroes. From two-time academy award winning (“Mystic River”, “Milk”) actor Sean Penn comes his fifth directorial feature in a film that breaks barriers in telling the stories of those who give everything to help those in need. “The Last Face” tells the story of Wren Petersen (Charlize Theron) a physician and activist who is continuing the work of her deceased father in the organization Doctors of the World. In 2003, he meets Doctor Miguel Leon (Javier Bardem), a doctor that has devoted himself to treating people from war-torn areas.
For decades politics, power and corrupt governments scrambling for mineral rich territories, have given rise to civil war in Africa and created conflict zones where the scale of destruction is now unimaginable. Hundreds and thousands of people have been slaughtered in military coups, are emotionally destroyed through rape and gender-based violence, and have been victims of unspeakable human rights violations. The civilians who have managed to survive the decimation have been forced to flee to safety from rebels sewing terror in their regions, making up more than 9 million refugees and internally displaced people without resources to form a new life. It is a suffering that knows no end. The motion picture “The Last Face” is brought to the screen by a group of filmmakers and actors who coincidentally all happen to be humanitarians in their own right and unquestionably this resonance was their motivation to work with very the difficult material.
