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Description
For educational use.
The Emmy Award-winning second film in Anne Aghion's documentary film series on Gacaca justice in Rwanda looks at the impact of a prisoner returning to his community before his trial. (2004)
Since 1999, award-winning filmmaker Anne Aghion has traveled to rural Rwanda, to chart the impact of that country’s efforts at ethnic reconciliation. In Rwanda we say… The family that does not speak dies, her second film on the subject, continues Aghion’s quest to learn how the human spirit survives a trauma as unfathomable as the attempt, in 1994, to wipe out the Tutsi minority, with 800,000 lives claimed in 100 days. In Rwanda we say… is the next chapter in a fascinating and intimate look at how, and whether, people can overcome fear, hatred and deep emotional scars, to forge a common future after genocide.
Aghion’s influential 2002 film, Gacaca, Living Together Again in Rwanda? captured the feelings of both survivors and alleged killers in the remote community of Ntongwe, just as the government was announcing the Gacaca (ga-CHA-cha), a new system of citizen-based justice intended to handle over 100,000 genocide suspects languishing in detention. In Rwanda we say… returns two years later as close to 16,000 of these suspects, still untried, are released across the country: having confessed to their crimes, and served the maximum sentence the Gacaca will eventually impose, suspects of appalling crimes are sent home to plow fields and fetch water alongside the people they are accused of victimizing.
In Rwanda we say… focuses on the release of one suspect, and the effect of his return on this tiny hillside hamlet. While the government’s message of a “united Rwandan family” infiltrates the language of the community, reactions to this imposed co-existence reel from numb acceptance to repressed rage. Violence seems to lurk just below the surface. What unfolds, however, is an astonishing testament to the liberating power of speech: little by little, people begin to talk in a profound and articulate way – first to the camera, and then to each other -- as these neighbors negotiate the emotional task of accepting life side by side.
PRAISE
Winner of an Emmy Award.
"One of the most remarkable documentaries you are likely to see this year."
—Connecticut Post
"With extraordinary sensitivity, Aghion takes us into the heart of the problem of reconciliation in a post-genocidal society - not with wordy abstractions but with the earthy, real expressions of the people, victims and accused criminals, who must try to live together. Those seeking to know whether reconciliation is possible in Rwanda must look for their answer in this compelling expression of Rwandan voices."
—Alison des Forges, Senior Advisor to Human Rights Watch, Africa
"Astonishing" and "Aghion has taken her camera deep into Rwandan life, to chronicle how the country's survivors and perpetrators are trying to live together anew. The narrative is carried by the tension that shows plainly in the faces of Aghion's subjects, in their difficult but always poetic words, in their long silences, in the haunting thunder and rain that roar over the deeply rural and impoverished place called Gafumba. There are no bodies in Aghion's films. Her work focuses on life after the genocide, on the lives of the living."
—The Washington Post
"Recommended!"
—Educational Media Reviews Online
"Excellent" and "riveting"
—LA Weekly
"[These] unpretentious films about Rwanda cover ground not covered in [other films]."
—The Villager
“Universal theater. Riveting. The sensitive point of view, coupled with a strong political awareness, allows her to film the victims and their executioners with complete modesty… Anne Aghion’s films show the infinite pain of the country…”
—Le Monde
“Much of docu’s power derives from extraordinary lensing… characterized by deep, radiant color and seemingly effortless painterly compositions."
—Variety
Learn more about the film series and read reviews @ www.gacacafilms.com (top of page).
For individuals wishing to purchase this film for home use, please e-mail anneaghionfilms@gmail.com.
Festivals
• Mémorial de la Shoah (Paris 2009 & 2008)
• Cinema Verite Festival (Paris 2008)
• The New School, Dorothy Hirshon Festival Vera List Center for Art and Politics (NYC 2006)
• Association of Genocide Scholars Conference (2005)
• 15èmes Rencontres du film documentaire Traces de Vies Clermont-Ferrand/Vic le Comte (France 2005)
• Filmhuis Den Haag, in collaboration with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the French Embassy (The Hague 2005)
• Médiathèque de Sartrouville (Paris 2005)
• Civil Violence and War Memories -- Here and Elsewhere. Umam Documentation & Research (Beirut 2005)
• United Nations Conflict Resolution Film Festival (NYC 2005)
• DOKFEST München (Germany 2005)
• Muestra de Cine Africano de Tarifa (Spain 2005)
• FOKAL: Fondation Connaissance et Liberté (Port-au-Prince 2005)
• Festival Cinema Africano (Milan 2005)
• 19th Friburg International Film Festival (Switzerland 2005)
• Fespaco Ougadougou (Burkina Faso 2005)
• Les Lundi de l'Ina: Institut national audiovisuel (Paris 2005)
• FIPA (France 2005)
• United Nations Association Film Festival (Stanford University 2004)
• African Studies Association Film Festival (2004)
• African Literature Association Film Festival (2004)
• Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (2004)
• The 7th International Meeting of Cinema and History Film Festivals (Istanbul 2004)
• 5th Documentary Film Month, French Ministry of Culture France (2004)
• Saint-Étienne Médiathèque (France 2004)
• Goucher College (Baltimore 2004)
• Global Visions Film Festival (Canada 2004)
• 18th Leeds International Film Festival (UK 2004)
• 47th Leipzig International Festival for Documentary (Germany 2004)
• United Nations Association Film Festival (Stanford 2004)
• Common Ground Film Festival (Washington DC 2004)
• Torino International Women’s Film Festival (Italy 2004)
• Festival international du film francophone de Namur (Belgium 2004)
• Vancouver International Film Festival (2004)
• Extramundi (France 2004)
• Etats Généraux du Documentaire (France 2004)
• 7th Zanzibar International Film Festival (Tanzania 2004)
• Common Ground Film Festival (Jerusalem 2004)
• 25th Durban International Film Festival (South Africa 2004)
• Human Rights Night Film Festival (Italy 2004)
• Amakula Kampala International Film Festival (Uganda 2004)
• Movie W (The Netherlands 2004)
• Oxford University Films on Rwanda (2004)
• Film Symposium about Rwanda (Amsterdam 2004)
• Afrika Film Festival (Belgium 2004)
• Documentaires sur grand écran (Paris 2004)
• Austrian Development Cooperation (Vienna 2004)
• Vues d’Afrique (Montréal 2004)
• Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Amsterdam 2004)
• Pioneer Theater (theatrical release - NYC 2004)
• Amnesty International Film Festival (Amsterdam 2004)
• Visions DC (Washington DC 2004)
• Bard College (New York 2004)
• Belgian Foreign Ministry (Brussels 2004)
• New School University (NYC 2004)
• United States Institute of Peace Conference (Washington DC 2004)
• Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (London 2004)
• International Festival of Films on Human Rights (Geneva 2004)
Production Credits & Notes
A Production of Gacaca Productions / Dominant 7 / in association with NDR/ARTE.
• Director: Anne Aghion
• Producers: Laurent Bocahut, Anne Aghion
• Editor: Nadia Ben Rachid
• Photography: Claire Bailly du Bois, James Kakwerere
• Sound Recordist: Richard Fleming
• Sound Editor: Dolorès Jordi
• Sound Mixer: Yves Servagent
• Production Manager: Benoit Gryspeerdt
• Translation / Interpretation: Jean Pierre Sagahutu, Aubert Ruzigandekwe, Assumpta Mugiraneza, Pauline Ligtenberg-Mukabalisa, Jean Damascène Bizimana, Charles Rukikanshuro, Joseph Binego
Produced with support from:
• The Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation
• The Federal Service of Foreign Affairs of Belgium
• The Austrian Development Cooperation
• The Sundance Documentary Fund, a program of the Sundance Institute
• The United States Institute of Peace
• The Centre National de la Cinématographie (France)
Fiscal Sponsor: Film/Video Arts
With the support of New York State Council on the Arts Electronic Media and Film Program
Color – 54’ – In Kinyarwanda with English subtitles
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