View source for Sorious Samura

{{Infobox person
| name  = Sorious Samura
| image  = 
| birth_date ={{birth date and age|1963|10|27|df=y}}
| birth_place  = 
| nationality = 
| citizenship  = [[Sierra Leone]]
| occupation = Journalist,<br>Film director
| years active =  }}
{{Short description|Sierra Leonean journalist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
'''Sorious Samura''' (born 27 October 1963) is a Sierra Leonean journalist. He is best known for two [[CNN]] documentary films: ''[[Cry Freetown]]'' (2000) and ''Exodus from Africa'' (2001). The self-funded ''Cry Freetown'' depicts the most brutal period of the civil war in [[Sierra Leone]] with [[Revolutionary United Front|RUF]] rebels capturing the capital city (January 1999).<ref name="newshour interview">{{cite news|title=CRY FREETOWN|url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june01/sierra_1-25.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010215214428/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june01/sierra_1-25.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=15 February 2001|access-date=14 October 2011|newspaper=[[PBS NewsHour]]|date=25 January 2001|format=Interview}}</ref> The film won, among other awards, an [[Emmy Award]] and a [[Peabody Award|Peabody]].  ''Exodus from Africa'' shows the harrowing effort by the best of young African male blood to break through to Europe via death- and danger-ridden paths from Sierra Leone and Nigeria, via [[Mali]], the [[Sahara]] desert, Algeria, and Morocco through the [[Strait of Gibraltar]] to Spain.

In his recent two projects ''Living with Hunger'' and ''Living with Refugees'' (nominated for an Emmy award), he takes reality television to its extreme, becoming the central character in the films by living the lifestyle of an Ethiopian villager and Sudanese [[refugee]] respectively; in doing this, he tries to break the boundary between "us" (the people watching on TV) and "them" (those before the camera) by becoming one of them (albeit for just a month). ''Living with Corruption'', his latest documentary to be shown on CNN, describes the shocking reality of how corruption is spread across society both in Sierra Leone and Kenya, affecting mostly the poor.

In 2010, Samura investigated attitudes to homosexuality in Africa in the [[Dispatches (TV series)|Dispatches]] documentary ''Africa's Last Taboo'', produced for [[Channel 4]]. Samura is also one of the directors of Insight News TV, an independent television production company in the UK focused on international current affairs programming.

Samura attended the Methodist Boys High School in the east end of Freetown. {{As of|2007}}, he works in London, UK, and considers both London and [[Freetown]] his hometowns.<ref>{{cite web
  | last =Samura
  | first =Sorious
  | title =Profile of InsightNewsTV
  | via =YouTube
  | url =https://www.youtube.com/profile?user=insightnewstv
  | access-date =  2 December 2007}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7742000/7742426.stm African chemists caught selling aid]
*[http://www.cryfreetown.org Cry Freetown]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20041027132603/http://www.insightnewstv.com/d49/ Return to Freetown]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20041019035341/http://www.sorioussamurasafrica.org/exodus.htm Exodus]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120502140956/http://www.insightnewstv.com/ Insight News TV | Online Documentary Films]
*[http://www.prix-europa.de/publish/yearbook_art.html?lang=GB&id=884&recStart=0 PRIX EUROPA]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20041016201914/http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2004/samura.html ''Time'' article on Samura]
*[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/sorious-samura-the-world-s-most-fearless-film-maker-5335791.html Sorious Samura: The world's most fearless film-maker]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Samura, Sorious}}
[[Category:1963 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Television journalists]]
[[Category:Sierra Leonean journalists]]
[[Category:Sierra Leonean documentary filmmakers]]
[[Category:Temne people]]
[[Category:People from Freetown]]


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