| Anne Aghion | |
|---|---|
Filmmaker Anne Aghion |
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| Born | Anne Aghion 1960 Paris, France |
| Occupation | Film director, film producer, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1996 – present |
| Awards | Coral Award for Best Work of a Non-Latin American Director on a Latin America Subject 1996 Se le movió el piso: A portrait of Managua |
| Website | |
| http://www.anneaghionfilms.com/ | |
Anne Aghion (born 1960) is a French-American documentary filmmaker and Guggenheim fellow.
In 2005, she won an Emmy Award for her documentary In Rwanda We Say…The Family That Does Not Speak Dies.
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Aghion is best known for her documentary films on post-genocide Rwanda. Her feature film in the Rwanda series My Neighbor, My Killer poses the question of "How do you make it right again?" after the end of the genocide.[1] It is the culmination of nearly ten years of footage gathered in Rwanda and was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009.[2] Her films closely examine the gacaca courts, a community-based system of justice meaning "grass" in Kinyarwanda. In Aghion's first Rwanda film Gacaca, Living Together Again In Rwanda?, she is filmed as a prosecutor who tried the prisoners.[3] The proceedings would occur on grass where anyone who had a denouncement against the accused would be free to speak. If no one accused the prisoner, then that prisoner would be freed.[4] In Rwanda We Say…The Family That Does Not Speak Dies chronicles Aghion's interviews with a genocide offender who has been released back into his community and conversations with victims of the genocide.[5] The films were shot in a small rural community over seven years and have been widely used by non-profit organizations for educational and training purposes. The third installment of her Rwanda series "The Notebooks of Memory" was released in 2009 and focuses on the local citizen-judges' examination of testimony from both the survivors and those accused of the crimes.[6]
Her first film, Se Le Movió El Piso (The Earth Moved Under Him)—A Portrait of Managua, was shot in the skid row of Managua. The film gives viewers an inside look in the life of Nicaraguan slum dwellers as they recount the numerous obstacles they have had to overcome in their lives.
Aghion took a four-month hiatus from the Rwandan film series and peregrinated to Antarctica, where she filmed her next film, Ice People,.[2] In the Ice People, she filmed the lives of geologists and North Dakota State University professors Allan Ashworth and Adam Lewis and the McMurdo Station staff over four months.[7] The scientists, accompanied by two undergraduate students, researched fossils of ancient specimens as they sought to uncover the climatic evolution of the world's coldest continent.[8] The film premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April 2008[9] and was screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival in July 2008.[10]
Anne Aghion splits her time between residences in New York City and Paris.[11]
Before becoming a filmmaker, Aghion held various posts at The New York Times Paris bureau and the International Herald Tribune.[12] Prior to her debut as director and producer of her own films, she worked as a videographer, as well as production and post-production manager.
Aghion earned a Bachelor of Arts Magna Cum Laude in Arab Language and Literature from Barnard College at Columbia University in New York,[4] and following her studies, lived in Cairo, Egypt for two years.[7]
Anne Aghion won an Emmy Award in 2005 for her feature documentary In Rwanda We Say…The Family That Does Not Speak Dies[13][14][15] and a UNESCO Fellini Prize for Gacaca, Living Together Again In Rwanda?.[16] In 1996, her first documentary Se le movió el piso: A portrait of Managua won the Coral Award for "Best Non-Latin American Documentary on Latin America" at the Havana Film Festival in Havana, Cuba.[17] Aghion is also a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and has received significant praise for her work.[18]
My Neighbor My Killer was screened at the 2009 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York where Anne Aghion received the Néstor Almendros Award (named for the Oscar-winning Néstor Almendros) for courage in filmmaking.[2]