Liberia and USA / 2007 / 77mins / Documentary / English

After fourteen years of civil war, Liberia is a nation ready for change. On January 16, 2006, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was inaugurated President, following a hotly contested election which she won with the overwhelming support across Liberia. She becomes the first elected female head of state in Africa. Since taking office she has appointed other extraordinary women to leadership positions in all areas of government, including the Police Chief and the ministers of Justice, Commerce and Finance. Can the first female Liberian president, backed by other powerful women, bring sustainable democracy and peace to such a devastated country and faces the constant threat that deposed President Charles Taylor might return? Iron Ladies of Liberia gives behind-the-scenes access to President Sirleaf’s first year in government, providing a unique insight into the workings of a newly elected African cabinet.

Siatta Scott Johnson

Siatta Scott Johnson was born in Buchanan, Liberia in 1974 and raised in rural Grand Bassa County. She fled Grand Bassa in the early 1990s with the outbreak of war and eventually settled in Monrovia, where she was living during the end of the civil war in 2003. Scott Johnson earned her B.A. in mass communications from the University of Liberia after the school re-opened following the war. She holds certificates in political reporting from the University of Liberia and in media from the Press Union of Liberia/UNMIL, and a diploma in journalism from the Liberia Institute of Journalism. She has several years of experience as a reporter and producer at DCTV, one of Liberia’s only broadcast television stations, and is a founding member of Omuahtee Africa Media. Learn More

Daniel Junge

Daniel Junge is an Oscar award winning documentary filmmaker. His first feature-length film, Chiefs, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Tribeca Film Festival and broadcast nationally on PBS. His subsequent feature, Iron Ladies of Liberia, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and aired on over 50 broadcasters worldwide including PBS and the BBC. They Killed Sister Dorothy, his third feature film, won the Audience and Grand Jury Prizes at the South by Southwest Film Festival before broadcasting on HBO and earning a 2010 Emmy nomination for Best Investigative Journalism. Junge’s film The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short in 2010. His film Saving Face, also for HBO, won Best Documentary Short in 2012. In 2012, he was extended a membership invitation to The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Junge is an alumnus of Cheyenne East High School and Colorado College. In 2015, Junge directed Being Evel, a documentary on the real story behind the myth of American icon Robert "Evel" Knievel and his legacy. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, broadcast on The History Channel, and was nominated for an Emmy for Best Sports Documentary in 2016. Junge also produced Liyana, a 2017 documentary following orphaned Swazi children as they create a narrative which is then brought to life using animation—and Hondros, on war photographer Chris Hondros. Junge served as Executive Producer and episode director on AMC's Secret History of Comics. Learn More