Death, Image, Memory

This book explores how photography and documentary film have participated in the representation of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath. This in-depth analysis of professional and amateur photography and the work of Rwandan and international filmmakers offers an insight into not only the unique ability of images to engage with death, memory and the need for evidence, but also their helplessness and inadequacy when confronted with the enormity of the event.
Focusing on a range of films and photographs, the book tests notions of truth, evidence, record and witnessing so often associated with documentary practice in the specific context of Rwanda and the wider representational framework of African conflict and suffering. Death, Image, Memory is an inquiry into the multiple memorial and evidentiary functions of images that transcends the usual investigations into whether photography and documentary film can reliably attest to the occurrence and truth of an event.

The specificity of the representation of the genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath considered alongside wider debates about the photographic and documentary film image Interdisciplinary approach to the relationship between image, memory and representation of history, death and injury Analysis of under-studied films and photographs, from Rwanda and beyond Original interviews with filmmakers, archivists and curators

Autorentext

Piotr Cieplak is a writer, filmmaker and academic. He is a lecturer in documentary film practice at Brunel University London, UK.

Inhalt
Introduction.- 1. Image, Evidence, Memory.- 2. Images of After: Gilles Peress and Sebastião Salgado.- 3. Images of Before: Personal Archives and the Kigali Genocide Memorial.- 4. 'Who filmed this?' Iseta: Behind the Roadblock (2008).- 5. 'I remember them' The Keepers of Memory (2004).- Conclusion: In Defense of Images?