Cultural Memory of the Rwandan genocide. An approach from the cinema

LIOR ZYLBERMAN

Ereván

Conferencia; The Twelfth Conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars; 2015

International Association of Genocide Scholars/Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute

Between April and July 1994 ?the fastest genocide in history? (Melvern, 2004) took place in Rwanda. One of the media by which the genocide acquired visibility was through film; thus, we could say that the various titles produced so far make an audiovisual archive on the basis that not only the films succeeded in establishing forms, schemes and visual motifs of representation but also allowed to put into circulation an interpretation of the genocide.From this starting point, this presentation aims to study the film archive of the Rwandan genocide from the concept of cultural memory: a type of memory that is mediated through texts, images, rituals, etc. (Assmann, 2011); in that sense, cinema has become one of the most important contemporary means for the construction and transmission of cultural memory. On the other hand, the dynamics of cultural memory, as an active form of memory, can be understood through a dialogue between thecanon and archive. In our presentation, we will investigate the archive of the Rwandan genocide in the light of that dialogue, not always harmonious one but sometimes dissonant.