(Sierra Leone) Sorie Kondi is a blind musician who has managed to survive on his music even through the horrors of civil war. (In 1999 rebels swept through Freetown, in what they themselves called "Operation No Living Thing.") He takes his name from the "kondi" an instrument we might know as a kalimba or an mbira -- or a thumb piano, which he has electrified. He was playing on the street when a recording engineer named Luke Wasserman, who was putting together an anthology of music from Sierra Leone heard him and decided to include him on the CD. A bond struck up between the two men, and a complete CD of Kondi's music was eventually recorded. The power of this rather simple video, shot on a consumer-grade hand held camera is in its documentary quality. We see Kondi's world, we see the streets he walks, the people he bumps into, the shops where he buys his food and clothing. "Without Money No Family" pulls no punches about the harshness of life, but we sense no self pity from Sorie Kondi.
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