'War/Dance' walks a line of money/hope

The businessman in distributor Mark Urman saw a sensible deal in the tale of children at a Ugandan refugee camp. But there's a charity angle here too.

MARK URMAN, head of ThinkFilm's U.S. theatrical division, was expecting little more than crudités, turkey wraps and inferior wine when he attended a fundraising party at a neighbor's house in New Jersey. The event was being held to help finance a documentary called "War/Dance," about the dispossessed children of Uganda. But Urman was in for a surprise: He found himself both moved and mesmerized by stirring images of resilient African children joyfully dancing and singing to the elegiac high notes of a xylophone. As the 7-minute reel of the then-unfinished film unspooled that spring evening in 2006, Urman realized that he had a strong business prospect before him.