FREEDOM RIDERS
KINYARWANDA
During the Rwandan genocide, when neighbors killed neighbors and friends betrayed friends, some crossed lines of hatred to protect each other.
At the time of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Mufti of Rwanda, the most respected Muslim leader in the country, issued a fatwa forbidding 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 is based on true accounts from survivors who took refuge at the Grand Mosque of Kigali and the madrassa of Nyanza. It recounts how the Imams opened the doors of the mosques to give refuge to the Tutsi and those Hutu who refused to participate in the killing.
KINYARWANDA interweaves six different tales that together form one grand narrative that provides the most complex and real depiction yet presented of human resilience and life during the genocide. With an amalgamation of characters, we pay homage to many, using the voices of a few.
Kinyarwanda website: http://www.kinyarwandamovie.com/
At the time of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Mufti of Rwanda, the most respected Muslim leader in the country, issued a fatwa forbidding 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 is based on true accounts from survivors who took refuge at the Grand Mosque of Kigali and the madrassa of Nyanza. It recounts how the Imams opened the doors of the mosques to give refuge to the Tutsi and those Hutu who refused to participate in the killing.
KINYARWANDA interweaves six different tales that together form one grand narrative that provides the most complex and real depiction yet presented of human resilience and life during the genocide. With an amalgamation of characters, we pay homage to many, using the voices of a few.
Kinyarwanda website: http://www.kinyarwandamovie.com/
FREEDOM RIDERS the powerful, harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives — and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment — for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating the Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.
From award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson (Wounded Knee, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, The Murder of Emmett Till) FREEDOM RIDERS features testimony from a fascinating cast of central characters: the Riders themselves, state and federal government officials, and journalists who witnessed the Rides firsthand. The two-hour documentary is based on Raymond Arsenault's book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.
"The lesson of the Freedom Rides is that great change can come from a few small steps taken by courageous people. And that sometimes to do any great thing, it's important that we step out alone." Stanley Nelson, filmmaker.
"An American Experience film, Freedom Riders is produced and directed by Stanley Nelson. American Experience is produced for PBS by WGBH Boston.
To learn more about American Experience visit: American Experience
Traces of the Trade is unique and disturbing journey of discovery into the history and "living consequences" of one of the nation's most shameful episodes — slavery. Following the bicentennial year of the U.S. abolition of the slave trade in 2008, one might think the tragedy of African slavery in the Americas has been exhaustively told. First time filmmaker, Katrina Browne, thought the same, until she discovered that her slave-trading ancestors from Rhode Island were not an aberration. Rather, they were just the most prominent actors in the North's vast complicity in slavery, buried in myths of Northern innocence.
Browne — a direct descendant of Mark Anthony DeWolf, the first slaver in the family — took the unusual step of writing to 200 descendants, inviting them to journey with her from Rhode Island to Ghana to Cuba and back, recapitulating the Triangle Trade that made the DeWolfs the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. Nine relatives signed up. Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North is Browne's spellbinding account of the journey that resulted.
Traces of the Trade, a 2008 Sundance Film Festival selection, is an important historical corrective to America's view of slavery and its consequences, and a probing essay into divergent versions of a history that continues to divide black and white in America, North and South.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Harold Fields who served as the training director for the project and appears in the film as part of the dialogue with the family. Harold facilitates a citywide monthly racial dialogue in Denver that has been active for twelve years.
Traces of the Trade website: http://www.tracesofthetrade.org
Browne — a direct descendant of Mark Anthony DeWolf, the first slaver in the family — took the unusual step of writing to 200 descendants, inviting them to journey with her from Rhode Island to Ghana to Cuba and back, recapitulating the Triangle Trade that made the DeWolfs the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. Nine relatives signed up. Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North is Browne's spellbinding account of the journey that resulted.
Traces of the Trade, a 2008 Sundance Film Festival selection, is an important historical corrective to America's view of slavery and its consequences, and a probing essay into divergent versions of a history that continues to divide black and white in America, North and South.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Harold Fields who served as the training director for the project and appears in the film as part of the dialogue with the family. Harold facilitates a citywide monthly racial dialogue in Denver that has been active for twelve years.
Traces of the Trade website: http://www.tracesofthetrade.org
TRACES OF THE TRADE
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