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Bold New Rwandan Genocide Film Celebrates Women Survivors

Bold New Rwandan Genocide Film Celebrates Women Survivors
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Frame from the proof-of-concept-trailer for TREES OF PEACE (actress: Sola Bamis)

Frame from the proof-of-concept-trailer for TREES OF PEACE (actress: Sola Bamis)

Luke Dejoras

Movies have always been a big part of my life, since I was a kid. As a woman of color, a modern feminist, and someone who considers herself a film buff, I’m always on the lookout for the next movie that’s going to say something powerful and change the conversation. (MOONLIGHT is the most recent film I can think of that did this.)

So I was both awed and viscerally thrilled when I first watched the proof-of-concept trailer for my friend’s new feature film, TREES OF PEACE. It is a brazen, intimate, stifling, and beautiful portrayal of the human spirit, through the lens of four women—who are trapped and hiding in a 4’ by 4’ room during the Rwandan genocide.

Immediately after watching the trailer, I called and asked her to send me the script. I needed to read it. And (with her blessing) let me just give you the first bits of opening dialogue:

None of us menstruates anymore. None of us goes to the bathroom. I can feel my spirit, eager for the long sleep.

So in addition to the more apparent elements of the film that honor and celebrate women—the cast, the writer/director—there’s a rich motif that explores the intricacies of womanhood.

After diving straight in with menstruation, soon comes pregnancy, rape, and childbirth. To be graphic, blood is shed, but not on the terms one would think when watching a film set in genocide. Beneath the very masculine deluge of constant gunfire and screams of chaos (which we will only ever hear, not see) the strong and tender feminine essence of these women is quite alive. The script is packed with these intense dualities. You learn each woman’s worst nightmare and greatest hope against the backdrop of impending death.

The writer/director takes it even further still, with the project initially deriving from the fact that Rwanda has the highest percentage of women politicians of any nation worldwide. Having come from such a dire circumstance—a time during which so many husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers were brutally killed—the women who survived the genocide led Rwanda to rehabilitation.

That says something powerful for women today.

We must escalate the visibility of movies like TREES OF PEACE. And I don’t just say that because the director is a friend of mine, but because I believe it. Each of us should be able to find our kindred spirit in the stories we watch on the silver screen.

I do love movies, but I’m exhausted by the gender and racial disparities that plague cinema. Why, when the world is so vast and so colorful, do we continue to make movies told from the same old white-male point of view? Not only are we inundated with Chris Pines, Chris Pratts, Zac Effrons, and Miles Tellers, but 99% of the female-cast films that do get made are directed by white men. A movie about women, told from the perspective of a woman, will carry insight that men just don’t have.

Movies uplift and inspire, yet a vast portion of the global population finds almost no representative of themselves on the screen. To me, that’s a staggering disservice. Cinema is a global artform, and should thereby represent the world citizens that comprise its audience. Making that vision a reality starts with the individual; it starts with you, and with me, with what we watch, what we create, and what we throw our support behind.

Watch the concept trailer below and visit the Kickstarter page here.

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