Gacaca Films Newsletter

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January 2010
Happy New Year - Welcome 2010!

Important screenings in the US and Europe coming up in January, including MoMA in New York, and reports from screenings in Rwanda and Kenya. 2009 ends with screenings of MY NEIGHBOR MY KILLER in Rwanda.

I just returned from Rwanda where I screened MY NEIGHBOR MY KILLER at the invitation of the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission and the Gacaca National Service. There were four very different screenings and the reception was extraordinary all around.

Several of the people featured in the film, along with the whole Rwandan crew, attended the official premiere in Kigali at the Prime Minister's office (left). It was a packed house of close to 300, with the head of NURC, Dr. Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana, and the Minister of Culture, Joseph Habineza, in attendance.

What was remarkable about that evening, was that people who had never ventured far from their hillside, let alone traveled to Kigali, understood that the filming process that had taken so much of their time and energy all these years would be meaningful not just for them, but for their whole country, as well as for people outside Rwanda.

The official premiere So when we went to screen the film in the community a couple of days later, in addition to the whole cast of characters, most villagers showed up in the little church near Félicité's home, for what turned into a very emotional afternoon (left). Many thanks to RCN Justice & Democracy for helping with logistics.

We then had an encore standing-room-only Kigali screening at Heaven Restaurant. As we had at every other screening, we observed a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the genocide (below right).

The official premiere And finally, following the success of the screening at the Prime Minister's office, we were asked to show the film to 600 women participating in a Unity and Reconciliation training program just outside Kigali. Once again, this was an intensely emotional event.

During the fall, in addition to many US screenings, the film started to travel around the world with important stops in South Korea, Mumbai, Belgrade, Warsaw, Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, among others - and at several venues in Kenya at the invitation of the Kenya Human Rights Commission as part of their effort to open dialogue after the turmoil that erupted there in 2007.

Starting 2010 with a BANG!

In the US, the film will screen at New York's Museum of Modern Art January 6 & 7 as part of their prestigious 'Contenders Series'. Then, I'll be heading out to the Palm Springs Int'l Film Festival January 10 & 11, and the right back to New York for a week's run at Maysles Institute in Harlem Jan 12 through 18.

Many more screenings are coming up in February - Paris and other venues in France, Geneva, Norway, Mexico...

Looking ahead, there is tremendous interest in Rwanda for the film to be screened widely there, and I will focus on making this happen; in Kenya, along with the KHRC, we are working to translate the film in Kiswahili to show it in key regions across the country; and I plan to travel to Cambodia to launch a screening series there.

And ICE PEOPLE

ICE PEOPLE is going strong as well. It's now available on Netflix in the US. In France, you can get it on Arte VOD and also on DVD on demand through Arte. And if you're somewhere else in the world, you can buy DVD's at www.icepeople.com.

WISHING ALL OF US, NOT JUST A GREAT NEW YEAR, BUT A SMASHING NEW DECADE!

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