Featuring John Bul Dau, Panther Bior, and Daniel Pach. Unrated. Opens Friday, May 25, at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas

Out of tragedy grows, well, more tragedy most of the time. But the subjects of this wonderful new documentary, while coping with almost unimaginable trauma and hardship, serve as inspiring examples of the human ability to do more than endure.

Before the film–which won the two top doc prizes at this year's Sundance festival–settles on three of the lost boys of Sudan, it delivers some background via breathless narration from Nicole Kidman, whose voice disappears after a while. It is the tale of roughly 27,000 children (including some girls) who fled on foot when civil war came to their lush part of southern Sudan, where fertile soil happened to cover untapped oil reserves. After seeing many of their parents murdered, the kids escaped the Arab-led government's Herod-like edict to eradicate all male children in the black, largely Christian parts of the country.

Many settled in a large camp in Kení‚ ­ya, where they existed in bored safety, growing up among clans of boys who learned to depend on each other until some were airlifted, earlier this decade, to different parts of the world, including the United States. Their experiences are detailed here in a beautifully shot and briskly edited package that smoothes out some of the subjects' bumpy paths while giving viewers a lot of access to three very likable and memorably eloquent survivors.

At the start of their journey into modernity there's much natural comedy based on their experience with western ways. They need to have lamps, toilets, and frozen food explained to them, and one holds up a bottle of Pepsi, declaring sagely that, "In Africa, this is called Coca-Cola." All agree that airplane food is worse than what they had in the refugee camp.

More soberly, scrappy Panther Bior, high-voiced Daniel Pach, and extremely tall John Bul Dau work multiple menial jobs trying to adjust and survive while attending community college and looking after people they left behind. The poetic, charismatic John Bul–he's the one who coins the title phrase–is a natural leader. His eventual reunion with family members he thought were gone adds even more resonance to the story, which borders on slick but always rings true.