Rwanda: The Hills Speak (Rwanda: Les Collines Parlent) New York Premiere! An hour-long documentary by Bernard Bellefroid Plus selected shorts Thursday, July 20th, 2006 8:30 - Live Music by Marie Claudine Mukamabano 9:00 - Showtime TRT: 1:40:00 On the roof of Downtown Community Television (DCTV) 87 Lafayette, 2 blocks below Canal btwn Walker & White, Tribeca, Manhattan Rwanda: The Hills Speak (Rwanda: Les Collines Parlent) Eleven years after the genocide, Rwanda: The Hills Speak follows survivors and torturers before and as they struggle through sessions of the Gacaca community tribunals, in which Tutsis and Hutus meet face to face in outdoor "courtrooms" and members of the community decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of accused murderers. This stunningly powerful verite documentary follow the trials of three men: Obede, an accused child-killer whose request for forgiveness are simply his cynical strategy to secure a release; Gahutu, who proclaims he has "no regrets" and says that the only things he killed during the massacres were "slithering snakes;" and Francois, who was forced to kill his own brother to save himself and who is now trying to reconcile with his sister-in-law. The mix of tragedy and redemption, of stubbornness and forgiveness is astonishing. The most astounding thing about this film is the way it exudes a hypnotic and eerie calm. The unbelievable violence and horror is not forgotten or buried—indeed, in one scene a woman accuses her murdering neighbor of farming on the grave of her family, and the anguish of the survivors is evident on even the most stoic faces. But it is fascinating to see the way a society is forced to deal with this atrocity, with denials and misstated pleas for forgiveness, with steeled hearts and harsh judgments. Rwanda: The Hills Speak is a beautiful and sad film about healing, which many in today's world would do well to study. The feature film is preceded by the following shorts: The Angel Makers (Astrid Bussink | Hungary | 30:00) The Angel Makers is an astonishing, observational portrait of the sleepy village of Nagyrev in rural Hungary. We meet its inhabitants, who share with us their daily life as well as their memories of the village's tainted past. We gradually come to understand the extent of the "arsenic murders" which took place in 1929, when a large group of women were held responsible for poisoning their husbands with the so-called "flypaper" method. Having been unable to talk about this period in history for many years, an intriguing web of stories unfolds through the characters' memories which recapture old but everlasting tales of life, death and the struggle between the sexes. Tes Cheveux Noirs Ishan (Your Dark Hair Ishan) (Tala Hassid | U.S. / Morocco | 13:00) After being notified of his mother's death, a man returns from Europe to North Africa. As he rediscovers his native city and the land of his birth, he remembers his long-lost mother and childhood. Time becomes blurred as he crosses the topography of the city and navigates the waters of the past and the present, dream and memory.