Wolf Gruner to Present Humanitarian Award to Rwandan Filmmaker Eric Kabera

Wolf Gruner, director of USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, will present Rwandan filmmaker and friend of USC Shoah Foundation Eric Kabera with a special award in Hollywood on Sunday, Nov. 8.

Kabera and his film Intore will receive the International Family Film Festival (IFFF)’s 2015 Humanitarian Award. Gruner will present the award at IFFF’s annual award ceremony and reception at Raleigh Studios; tickets are available here.

The IFFF Humanitarian Award is bestowed on a person, organization or film that consistently demonstrates the highest level of integrity, concern and compassion for human welfare with an abiding respect for the family bond.

Kabera, who has a background in radio journalism, is the founder and CEO of Kwetu Film Institute – Rwanda’s first film school. His directing and producing credits include 100 Days (2001), the first internationally-acclaimed film about the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide; the documentary Keepers of Memory (2004), about the men and women who watch over Rwanda’s sacred burial sites, and Africa United (2010), about three Rwandan kids’ quest to attend the World Cup in South Africa.

He appears in the documentary Finding Hillywood (2013), about the birth of the Rwandan film industry.

His most recent film, Intore, is about how Rwandans use music and dance to heal from genocide.

Kabera’s connection to the USC Shoah Foundation goes back many years, as he was involved in USC Shoah Foundation’s early efforts to collect and preserve testimony of survivors of the Rwandan Tutsi Genocide. He also served as a juror for the 2014 Student Voices Film Contest, which challenges USC students to make short films using testimony from the Visual History Archive, and has screened his films at USC School of Cinematic Arts.

He said seeing how far USC Shoah Foundation’s Rwandan Tutsi Genocide collection has come since he first got involved over five years ago is “a dream come true.” The collection now includes 65 testimonies collected by USC Shoah Foundation and Kigali Genocide Memorial.