Director Matthew Millan, producers Harold Millan & Hammuda Abidia, and composer Erik Niel in attendance at Friday night screening!

Muammar Gaddafi ruled Libya as a dictator for 42 years. During his reign, he forcibly censored Western influences, including the playing of music, and artists of all kinds were pushed underground. In February 2011, when the Arab Spring took hold in Libya, fighting filled the streets as citizens picked up weapons to stand against Gaddafi’s oppression, and some picked up an instrument. While violence ripped the country apart, music brought its people together.

STRONGER THAN BULLETS follows the lives of several Libyan musicians throughout the conflict: soldiers, preachers and ordinary citizens. They play music of all varieties, from folk to hip-hop to metal, representing the hope that sprung up anew in the country after Gaddafi's death; freedom, however, is not so easily won. As the remnants of the old empire cling to power, the musicians find their very right to play threatened. Telling, at its heart, a relatable artistic story through the lens of one of the major Middle Eastern conflicts, STRONGER THAN BULLETS is director Matthew Millan's second venture into the Libyan civil war, after WE WIN OR WE DIE.