In 2006, Haaken directed "Diamonds, Guns, and Rice", an examination of the Sierra Leone civil war, with her son, Caleb Heymann. She revisited Sierra Leone in the 2008 documentary film "Moving to the Beat", co-directed by Abdul Fofanah and Heymann and produced by Haaken. "Moving to the Beat" follows an American hip-hop group journeying to Freetown, Sierra Leone and explores the relationship between Black Americans and Africans and the roots of the hip-hop genre.