A Rare Privilege for Writers Institute Audiences

Hadidja Zaninka, star of Kinyarwanda, a film that won the Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Audience Award, will be in attendance at our screening of the film.

She herself has seen the film only once before (despite being the star) because access to the film is strictly limited in Rwanda.

Albany is the first stop on her US road trip.

This is also her first trip out to the US and (the filmmakers believe but haven't confirmed) her first trip out of southern Africa. It was difficult for her to obtain a visa, despite the success of the film which has won many international awards. Obtaining a visa required a direct appeal to the President of Rwanda.

More on the film:  http://www.kinyarwandamovie.com/

More on the event: 
KINYARWANDA
September 28 (Friday)Film screening — 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Written and directed by Alrick Brown
(United States, Rwanda, France, 2011, 100 minutes, color)
In English and Kinyarwanda with English subtitles

Winner of the World Cinema Audience award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, KINYARWANDA is based on the heroic true story of local Muslim clergy who risked their lives to save both Tutsi and pacifist Hutu—Christians as well as Muslims—during the Rwandan genocide. In a four star review, Roger Ebert said, “Here is a powerful film.”

NOTE: The film’s producer Darren Dean and leading Rwandan actress Hadidja Zaninka will answer questions immediately after the screening.

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Rwandan Actress to Visit US for first time

Dear Filmgoers and All Members of the General Public,

We invite you to attend the following FREE event:

KINYARWANDA catered reception, film screening and Q&A with Rwandan actress Hadidja Zaninka and producer Darren Dean

 

After a prolonged period of uncertainty and a direct appeal to the President of Rwanda, Hadidja Zaninka (pictured here), a young Rwandan Muslim and star of the award-winning film Kinyarwanda, was finally granted permission to visit the US. Based on fact, the film highlights the heroism of Rwanda’s Muslim minority in saving lives during the genocide. The first event of Hadidja’s road trip with American producer Darren Dean will be here in Albany. She will be arriving in the US Thursday and speaking here Friday. This is her first visit to the US. Because access to the film is controlled in Rwanda, she has viewed it only once before. She may choose to sit through it here to have the experience of seeing it with an American audience. The filmmakers have tried to get her an exit visa before to no avail.

September 28 (Friday)

Catered reception – 6:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Film screening — 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus

Written and directed by Alrick Brown

(United States, Rwanda, France, 2011, 100 minutes, color)

In English and Kinyarwanda with English subtitles

Winner of the World Cinema Audience award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, KINYARWANDA is based on the heroic true story of local Muslim clergy who risked their lives to save both Tutsi and pacifist Hutu—Christians as well as Muslims—during the Rwandan genocide. In a four star review, Roger Ebert said, “Here is a powerful film.”

NOTE: The film’s producer Darren Dean and leading Rwandan actress Hadidja Zaninka (pictured here) will answer questions immediately after the screening.

The film is part of the Justice & Multiculturalism in the 21st Century Film Series: Justice & Multiculturalism in the 21st Century is a multifaceted project aimed at engaging conversations about the intersection of social justice and criminal justice in an increasingly diverse society. UAlbany’s School of Criminal Justice and the Writers Institute are partnering to present six films over the next year that will explore these issues. Topics that will be explored during the fall 2012 series are genocide, capital punishment, and terrorism. Each screening will be followed by a discussion. For additional information on the Justice & Multiculturalism in the 21st Century project go to: http://www.albany.edu/justiceinstitute/.

Some additional information:

http://www.kinyarwandamovie.com/  

For more information contact the Writers Institute at writers@albany.edu or 442-5620.

 

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Breaking Down Timbuktu

Nigerian author and art critic Teju Cole, who visited the Institute in February 2012, writes about the motivations of iconoclasts in history, and the destruction by Sunni extremists of Timbuktu's medieval Sufi Muslim shrines that have been decleared UNESCO World Heritage sites.

From the webzine, The New Inquiry:

"Iconoclasm is nominally about theology. Images which represent the wrong ideas must be expunged. But why be so furious about ideas? And, so, how are we to understand the ongoing destruction of Sufi shrines in the north of Mali? Ansar Dine, the rebel group that now controls Timbuktu, believes itself to be doing the will of God. The United Nations doesn’t matter, Ansar Dine has said, UNESCO is irrelevant, only God’s law matters. The locals are helpless, and horrified. Short of witnessing grievous bodily harm, few things are as astonishing as seeing the casual, physical destruction of what one holds sacred."

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Jewish Author Builds Mosque in Cambodia

Together with his family, author and theoretical physicist Alan Lightman (who visits February 2nd) has created a charitable foundation to improve the lives of women and children in the third world.

From the Associated Press, May 2008: "American Jewish family builds mosque in Cambodian village"

When residents of this poor Cambodian village need something built, they call on the Lightmans.

The Jewish-American family's latest gift: A mosque.

"We never had such a beautiful mosque in our village," said 81-year-old Leb Sen, a toothless, village elder with a wrinkled face. "The young people said to me that I am very lucky to live long enough to see one now."

Flashing a broad grin, Leb Sen brought his palms together and bowed repeatedly in gratitude toward his American donors - Alan Lightman, his wife, Jean Greenblatt Lightman and their daughter, Elyse.

Alan Lightman, a 59-year-old humanities professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said building the mosque was not part of his family's original plan to improve education in the village, about 70 kilometres northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh.

"It's too much to comprehend. We never imagined that we would build a mosque in a remote village in Cambodia," said Lightman, author of the bestselling novel "Einstein's Dreams." More.

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