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Rwanda – A Journey of Reconciliation
August 26, 09
By : Cynthia La Grou
Could you forgive a person who murdered your family? This is the question faced by the subjects of As We Forgive, an award winning documentary film about Rosaria and Chantal, two ravaged Rwandan survivors coming face-to-face with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide. The subjects of As We Forgive speak for a nation still wracked by the grief of a genocide that killed one in eight Rwandans in 1994 when neighbor turned against neighbor in one of the swiftest genocides in history, leaving nearly one million Rwandans dead and even more orphaned or widowed.
Throughout Rwanda’s history, neighbors have settled disputes by adjourning to the gacaca court (pronounced ga-cha-cha; meaning “on the grass”) to sit, discuss and mediate personal and community problems. The gacaca judges are respected persons selected by the community and are without legal training.
However, with prisons overflowing and courts overwhelmed by massive backlogs of court cases a decade later, Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, made a controversial decision to return over 50,000 genocide perpetrators back to the very communities they helped to destroy. Without the hope of full justice, Rwanda has turned to a new solution: Reconciliation.
But does this approach stand a chance? Can survivors truly forgive the killers who destroyed their families? Can the government expect this from its people? And can the church, which failed at moral leadership during the genocide, fit into the process of reconciliation today? In As We Forgive, director Laura Waters Hinson and narrator Mia Farrow explore these topics through the lives of four neighbors once caught in opposite tides of a genocidal bloodbath, and their extraordinary journey of reconciliation.
It all started one balmy Rwandan afternoon in August of 2005, when Laura Waters, then a master’s film student at American University, met Anglican Bishop John Rucyahana. Bishop John, a leading advocate of reconciliation in Rwanda, described a reconciliation project he had established that seemed radical and, frankly, unreal. Ex-prisoners were building homes for those who not only survived the genocide, but the family members of those they killed. Laura’s interest was peaked as she imagined a film that could capture for Western viewers the profound message communicated by genocide survivors and perpetrators who are reconciling and living together again as neighbors. Laura spent the next ten months raising money from family and friends, and the following summer, she returned with a small crew of student filmmakers.
Within a month, Hinson filmed 55 hours of footage, cutting it down to 53 minutes on her Mac. Her Emmy-winning composers charged her $8,000 for a score that would usually cost twice as much. Two families from her church gave her $18,000. Mia Farrow lent her voice to the narration, after Hinson was introduced to her through the staff of a Virginia congressman. The Rwandan president agreed to an interview on the last day of shooting. Her total cost came to $25,000, a mere fraction of what a similar documentary would cost. Laura had accomplished her goal: to test the claim that genuine reconciliation was occurring in Rwanda.
Fast forward, almost four years later and we find Laura Waters Hinton currently engaged in a nationwide screening tour, presenting As We Forgive in such places as the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Senate, the State Department, Library of Congress, the World Bank and at various universities and institutions. As We Forgive has garnered seven film festival awards including Gold Winner for Best Documentary at the Student Academy Awards 2008 and National Geographic All Roads Film Festival. To commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan horrors, As We Forgive was screened on PBS stations, including PBS WORLD around the country throughout the summer.
On the Rwandan front, the film is having a significant impact. The initial VIP national premier took place July 3rd at the Serena Hotel in Kigali. It was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Sports and Culture and the U.S. Embassy, and brought together some of the most influential people in Rwanda, including Rwandan ministers, foreign ambassadors, and leaders of key organizations. This was the launch of a nation-wide initiative using the power of film to engage Rwandan youth and leaders in the process of reconciliation.
After the premiere, the film went on the road using a 20-foot inflatable screen and projection system to show in as many schools, universities, prisons, churches and villages as possible, the goal being to initiate community dialogues with discussion programs and to build partnerships between all the major agencies working on reconciliation in Rwanda. This initiative is supported at the highest levels of the Rwandan government and brings together government ministries as well as groups in the private sector that hope to see visible and measurable results in the country. It is also their hope for reconciliation activities to assist survivors and released prisoners in participating in economic development and other projects of unity that will move Rwandan communities forward.
How can those who have been deeply moved by this film find an outlet to become involved? How can they become part of the ongoing story?At Compathos, we believe a social impact film is highly successful when it moves an audience to action and measurable results are achieved in various ways. A films key partnerships with diverse groups and non profits who can facilitate financial and volunteer resources are invaluable. As we Forgive has done this by developing and implementing a unique “viewer action campaign” to promote corresponding on the ground programs for viewer contribution and participation with the ongoing story.
Launched by the producers of As We Forgive, Living Bricks invites people to join Rwanda’s reconciliation movement through a partnership with Prison Fellowship International. Living Bricks is an initiative to restore hearts and homes which is modeled after the house-building project featured in As We Forgive. The program equips genocide perpetrators with the tools to build much-needed housing for their victims’ families, establishing new villages where former killers and survivors live together again as neighbors through practical reconciliation.
To date, over 10,000 ex-prisoners have asked for the supplies to build these houses of hope. You can help make this happen by giving a brick. A gift of $20 will help an ex-prisoner construct a new home in the Living Bricks Village, a place where former genocide killers and survivors live together peacefully through forgiveness. A gift of $5,000 will allow a team of ex-genocide prisoners to build an entire house within the Living Bricks Village. These houses provide much-needed shelter for genocide survivors whose property was destroyed during the genocide. A few of the new homes will be given to ex-prisoners, allowing them to live side-by-side in reconciliation with their surviving neighbors. A tax-deductible contribution supports Prison Fellowship’s Living Bricks Campaign in Rwanda. Prison Fellowship International is a registered 501c3 organization.
Coming In September: podcast interview with Laura Waters Hinson – filmmaker and photographer based in Washington, DC. She is the founder of Image Bearer Pictures and recently launched the Living Bricks Campaign, a multi-media viewer project to support reconciliation efforts in Rwanda. Laura received a master of fine arts degree in filmmaking from American University and has worked in the past as the director of creative arts at an Anglican church, as a development coordinator for the Discovery Health Channel, and as a research assistant for MSNBC host Chris Matthews. Most recently, Laura served on the crew of 14 Women, an acclaimed documentary on the lives of the female U.S. Senators, directed by Mary Lambert
