KINYARWANDA: Cassandra Freeman (Lt. Rose) Freeman is an established star of both stage and screen. She has appeared on Broadway in “Seven Guitars,” and on TV in The Guiding Light, All My Children, Shark and Numbers. On the big screen, Freeman came to international recognition with roles in Chris Rock’s I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE and Spike Lee’s INSIDE MAN, where she starred alongside Denzel Washington. She is a graduate of both Florida State University and NYU’s prestigious acting programs.
KINYARWANDA: Alrick Brown (Director) Director's Statement Kinyarwanda is a feature length film spawned from the very real stories of Rwandans who survived the 1994 Genocide, many of whom lost family and friends. These stories and the research of Executive Producer Ishmael Ntihabose resulted in this very unique way of telling a part of Rwandan history yet unknown to most of the world. Ishmael’s research focused on the how many Hutu and Tutsi Muslims in Rwanda worked with Christian Hutus and Tutsis to protect and save lives. While many previous films focused on the politics and death during the genocide, Kinyarwanda is a movie about life, faith, forgiveness, and reconciliation. However we use the genocide as a backdrop and a context to tell our character’s very personal stories. As one Rwandan said, “Even during the genocide, life still went on.” My hope is that audiences will come to know Rwandans as ordinary people, individuals, lovers, friends and not merely heroes, villains, victims or perpetrators. In order to create a film that would be both educational and entertaining the film uses storytelling structure much like popular artistic films like Pulp Fiction, Amores Perros and Crash. There are a series of short stories that intertwine to create one energetic, engaging, and entertaining 90-minute narrative. This is a film as much about process as it is about the final product. As a team we have set out to work with as many Rwandans in front of and behind the camera as possible. In this vain, most of the Rwandan crew on the film, who had worked on previous films as assistants to assistants headed up their own departments on this film. In front of the camera, Rwandan actors from previous films are accompanied be a cast of mostly first time actors. This film is collaboration like no other I have ever experienced. It changed my life and the lives of our cast and crew and it will change the life of our audience.
KINYARWANDA: Edouard Bamporiki (Emmanuel) Bamporiki is an award-winning filmmaker, actor and poet. As a young Rwandan artist, he has received national and international attention for his stories of hope, unity and reconciliation. Bamporiki was born in a small village in the Western province, educated in Rwandan schools, and lives in the capitol city of Kigali. His feature debut in Lee Isaac Chung’s MUNYURANGABO yielded him a Best Actor nomination in Cannes. In 2008, he wrote, directed, starred in, and produced LONG COAT, which won first prize in African Film at the Focus Future Film Festival in New York.
KINYARWANDA (WORLD CINEMA AUDIENCE AWARD: DRAMATIC) Visigoth Pictures In Association with Cineduc Rwanda Presents A Film by Alrick Brown " KINYARWANDA " Alrick Brown 2011 Categories: World Cinema Dramatic Competition The World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic was presented to Kinyarwanda, directed and written by Alrick Brown, which tells the story of Rwandans who crossed the lines of hatred during the 1994 genocide, turning mosques into places of refuge for Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis. U.S.A./Rwanda Fresh, insightful, and profoundly moving, Kinyarwanda, the first dramatic feature film conceived and produced by Rwandans, is an extraordinary telling of the 1994 genocide that expands the common victim/perpetrator narrative to illuminate the complex fabric of life during the tragic event, and the even more complicated process of redemption in the truth and reconciliation process. Director/writer Alrick Brown and cowriter/producer Ishmael Ntihabose elegantly interweave six stories based on true accounts—a Tutsi/Hutu couple, a small child, a soldier, a pair of teenage lovebirds, a priest, and an Imam—as they are affected by the Muslim leadership of the time. Little is known about how the Mufti of Rwanda—the most respected Muslim leader in the country—forbade Muslims from participating in the killing of the Tutsi. As the country became a slaughterhouse, mosques became places of refuge where Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis came together to protect each other. Kinyarwanda plumbs the shades of gray to find humanity in every perspective and offers a rich understanding of what it means to survive unimaginable terror, and the astounding resilience of the human spirit to find ways to heal and forgive.