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#ÁfricaEsNoticia: Sale el sol en Ruanda, por Ayoze O'Shanahan
Ayoze O’Shanahan, the audio-visual director and journalist from Gran Canaria, has been invited to be the next speaker in Casa África’s conference programme #ÁfricaEsNoticia, to be held on 19 April, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Casa África auditorium.
O'Shanahan has lived in Kigali, Rwanda, since 2013. There, he directs the audio-visual production company Looking for Livingstone, which offers production services in the Great Lakes and East Africa, offers content to media interested in the region and collaborates in campaigns for NGOs. Ayoze O'Shanahan also works on his own stories, in both documentary and short film format.
Rwanda is a small country in the centre of the African continent. On 7 April, it commemorated the twenty-third anniversary of the beginning of the genocide that has marked its recent history. Out of a trauma that killed one million of its citizens, today Rwanda is an example for its region and for all of Africa.
Efficient public policies, economic growth, pan-African endorsement, environmental sustainability and technological advances have made it a benchmark for many African governments and countries, something that was far from the minds of those who witnessed, between April and July 1994, the massacre of Tutsis and moderate Hutus at the hands of organized gangs of Hutu incited by Hutu Power and the sadly famous Thousand Hills Radio.
The Rwandan genocide had, and continues to have, an enormous impact throughout the Great Lakes area, with displacements of Rwandan refugees to neighbouring countries that destabilized the entire area and gave rise to the last two conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the deadliest since World War II, with an estimated 6 million deaths.
Ayoze O'Shanahan holds a degree in journalism from the University of Wales, UK, and a specialisation in Communication and Armed Conflict from the Complutense University of Madrid. He studied Production and Screenwriting at the International Film School of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. As producer, director and screenwriter, his key documentaries include: La Maldición, El milagro y el burro (2012), La isla afortunada (2011), La historia que no contaron (2009), La muerte no tiene amigo (2006) and La aventura del tabaco (2004)
His works have earned a dozen awards and mentions of honour, in addition to more than 100 selections at international film festivals. After extensive travels in Latin America, Ayoze travelled to Kenya and then to Rwanda in 2013 and fell in love with the African continent. After 4 months, he decided to extend his stay in Rwanda and set up the production company Looking for Livingstone, from which he produces and collaborates with international media, cooperation agencies and NGOs to tell the stories that take place in the Great Lakes and East Africa. In just four years, Looking for Livingstone has become one of the region’s leading producers with production services for National Geographic Channel, NHK Japan, NBC Universal, AFP, Olympic Channel and France24, among others.
In his presentation, O'Shanahan will talk about the daily reality of this new Rwanda that can now be proud of parity in its Parliament, of economic and social progress and of important advances in innovation at all levels.
A Rwanda that lives with that other Rwanda which still has wounds to clean and heal as well as ongoing work in the field of reconciliation and justice.
Free admission. Limited capacity.
Download the programme
Photographs: Ayoze O'Shanahan
