A documentary about how Rwandans use personal and family photographs to remember and commemorate the loved ones they lost in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
The genocide in Rwanda claimed almost a million lives in just 100 days. The world stood by as men, women and children were being hacked to death by machetes. When the international community finally decided it was time to pay attention, it did so through memorable photographs of mutilated bodies and seas of nameless refugees. But many Rwandans remember their loved ones through images of life, not death: a passport or I.D. card photo, an unguarded snap taken in the garden or a group portrait from a wedding or a baptism. The surviving images are precious objects, with so many destroyed and lost forever. A lot of people have only a solitary image of their loved ones. Many have none at all.
The Faces We Lost engages with nine Rwandans (survivors, relatives of victims and professional memory-makers), who guide us through their stories and share their experiences, remembrance and images. It is the first documentary to explore the many functions of these priceless photographs, and one of the few films to engage with Rwandans as users of images, rather than simply their subjects. These deeply personal stories are all marked by the terrible experience the genocide and its legacy have left on their owners. Each is unique to the person who tells it. But The Faces We Lost also explores the professional aspect of memory-making in Rwanda: The Genocide Archive (which holds thousands of original images donated by the victims’ relatives) and the Kigali Genocide Memorial (where many of the photographs are on public display). As the private and the public meet and as each person recounts their relationship with the photographs they have or they wish they had, The Faces We Lost moves to paint a complex memorial landscape of contemporary Rwanda.
In the official selection at Cambridge African Film Festival (UK) 2017
In the official selection at Africa-in-Motion Film Festival (UK) 2017
In the official selection at Rwanda Film Festival 2017
In the official selection at World Film Festival (Estonia) 2018
In the official selection at Festival International du Film Panafricain de Cannes (France) 2018
In the official selection at Afrykamera: International African Film Festival (Poland) 2019
In the official selection at Forest City Film Festival (Canada) 2019
Runner up in Best Moving Image Research Portfolio Prize at British Association of Film, TV and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) 2018
Nominated for the Best Research Film of the Year by Arts and Humanities Research Council 2018
The Faces We Lost premiered on the WORLD CHANNEL in the U.S. on 4th February 2019 as part of the Afropop: Ultimate Cultural Exchange series.
You can watch the film for free here
Directed, written and produced by
Piotr Cieplak
Assistant Producer & Director:
Clementine Dusabejambo
Edited by
Jak Payne
Ben Venfield
Postproduction and sound mix by
Ben Venfield
Cinematography by
Naizi Nasser
Sound recording by
Eugene Safali
Production management by
Ayubu Kasasa
Music by
Emmanuel Habimana
Featuring
Mama Lambert
Adeline Umuhoza
Aline Umugwaneza
Claver Irakoze
Oliva Mukarusine
Claudine Mukantaganzwa
Rebecca Muragijimana
Rachel Uwiringiyimana
Serge Rwigamba
Cecile Mutabonwa
Paul Rukesha
Duration: 61 mins
Date of completion: June 2017
Image: Colour
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Shooting format: 4K
Screening format: DCP, DVD, Blu-ray, digital file
Language: Kinyarwanda, English
Country of production: United Kingdom
Filmed in: Rwanda
With the support of: The British Academy, Brunel University London, Aegis Rwanda and Kigali Genocide Memorial.