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 "My great desire is that this film will be a spark to ignite
a movement of young people and the young-at-heart to believe
they have a role to play in changing the world around them,"
said Kathy Eldon, mother of Dan Eldon and the film's producer.
"The Journey Is The Destination," which premiered at the Toronto
International Film Festival on Wednesday, chronicles the final
three years of Dan Eldon's life during which he fell in love,
raised money for refugees, drove across Africa to deliver it and
became a photojournalist.
"The Eldon family are miraculous to me," said director Bronwen
Hughes. "They have taken this story of their son and transformed
it into a movement for global positive change."
The British-American photographer joined journalists on an
assignment to cover a civil war and famine in Somalia and the
UN-mandated and U.S-led mission to secure humanitarian relief.
After scores of civilians were killed and wounded in a U.S.
bombing that was targeting Somali warlords, journalists
documenting the aftermath were attacked by a mob. Eldon and
three other journalists were killed. He was 22.
Kathy and Dan's sister Amy founded the Creative Visions
Foundation after Eldon's death to build on the efforts of
activists using media and art to cause social change.
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The film drew heavily on journals Eldon kept, a collection of which
his family published after his death.
"Dan had left us a visual map to the way to tell his story and I
determined that had to be the visual language for the film," Hughes
said.
The film, which does not yet have distribution, stars Ben Schnetzer
as Dan, Maria Bello as Kathy, and Kelly Macdonald as Amy.
A Reuters memorial book commemorating the lives of its journalists
killed on the job paid tribute to Eldon and the two other Reuters
journalists who died that day: television sound recordist Anthony
Macharia, 21, and photographer Hos Maina, 38, as well as Associated
Press photographer Hansi Krauss, 30.
"Eldon had been nicknamed 'The Mayor of Mogadishu' because of his
outgoing, friendly manner," it says.
Mark Wood, who was the news agency's editor-in-chief at the time,
called it "one of the saddest days in Reuters history."
(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Chris Reese)
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