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Gacaca (Ga-CHA-cha), which literally means "justice on the grass", is a form of citizen-based justice which the Rwandans decided to put into place to deal with the crimes of the 1994 genocide. Filming for over a decade in a tiny rural hamlet, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Anne Aghion has charted the impact of the Gacaca on survivors and perpetrators alike.
Feature film
My Neighbor My Killer
When peace comes, how do you make it right again?
An epic journey in search of co-existence in Rwanda.
Could you ever forgive the people who slaughtered your family? In 1994, Rwanda’s Hutu populace was incited to wipe out the country’s Tutsi minority, with 800,000 lives claimed in 100 days.. In 1999, the government began the Gacaca (ga-CHA-cha)—open-air hearings with citizen-judges meant to try their neighbors and rebuild the nation. Through their fear and anger, accusations and defenses, blurry truths, inconsolable sadness and hope for life renewed, follow this emotional journey to co-existence.
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Film Trilogy
Gacaca, Living together again in Rwanda?
Unesco Fellini Prize, "Seminal"—Variety
Venture into the rural heart of the African nation of Rwanda. Follow the first steps in one of the world’s boldest experiments in reconciliation: the Gacaca Tribunals. While world attention is focused on the unfolding procedures, Aghion bypasses the usual interviews, skips the statistics, and goes directly to the emotional core of the story, talking one-on-one with survivors and accused killers alike. In this powerful, compassionate and insightful film... she captures first-hand how ordinary people struggle to find a future after cataclysm.
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In Rwanda We Say... The family that does not speak dies
Emmy Award Winner, "astonishing"—The Washington Post
The second film in this trilogy continues Aghion’s quest to learn how the human spirit survives a trauma so unfathomable. This chapter we return 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. 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.
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The Notebooks of Memory
On a lush green Rwandan hillside, more than a decade after the 1994 genocide, a small rural community gathers on the grass over and over again for the Gacaca trials. This final chapter follows the process, as a tribunal of local citizen-judges weighs survivor accounts of the massacres against the testimony of perpretrators who barter confessions for reduced prison sentences.
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A once-in-a-lifetime journey with Antarctica's 21st-century explorers
Go on one of the earth’s most seductive journeys—Antarctica. Aghion spent four months “on the ice” with modern-day polar explorers, finding out what drives this dedicated pursuit of science, capturing the true experience of living and working in this extreme environment, and witnessing one of the most significant discoveries about climate change in recent Antarctic science. The most authentic film about life on the ice since the trailblazing expeditions chronicled nearly a century ago, Ice People conveys the vast beauty, the claustrophobia, the excitement and the stillness of an experience set to nature’s rhythm. more info >
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