In Itsembatsemba (1996-2000), Alexis Cordesse photographed the aftermath of the genocide: exhumations, commemorations, and survivors in psychiatric hospitals. By combining these shots with extracts from the recordings of the Radio-Télévision libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), the propaganda and denunciation tool used by the genocide perpetrators, the photographs take on a new meaning. Words and voices come to contaminate and complicate the visual representations of horror, reminding us that any extermination enterprise, before being an act, is an idea, a word, born of human consciousness.
• Itsembatsemba, an installation
Itsembatsemba is an installation including 30 images and a sound track based on archive material from the ‘Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines’ (One Thousand Hills Free Radio and Television) – RTLM, the famous ‘Hate Radio’.
Collection
・FRAC Auvergne, FR
• Itsembatsemba, Rwanda one genocide later, a film
Short film, Alexis Cordesse & Eyal Sivan
Documentary| 1996 | 13mn | B/W | 4:3 | STEREO
VO : Kinyarwanda – Subtitles : English
© État d’urgence [FR] momento production [FR]
Awards
・GOLDEN GATE AWARD, San Fransisco International Film Festival, 1997
・MENTION SPÉCIALE, Bilbao international documentary film festival, 1997
Festivals selections
・Documenta XI, Cassel, 2002
・Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, 2003
・International Human Rights Film Festival, Ramallah-Tel-Aviv, 2000
・Amnesty International Film Festival, Amsterdam, 1998
・Rencontres Cinématographiques de Seine St Denis, Résistance, 1998
・Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, 1997
・Festival Cinéma du Réel, Paris, 1997
・International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, 1996