Carole Karemera | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1975 (age 48–49) |
| Nationality | Rwandan |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, saxophone player, theater director, festivals producer and culture policy expert |
| Website | www.ishyoartscentre.org |
Carole Umulinga Karemera (born 1975) is a Belgian-born Rwandan actress, saxophone player, theater director, festivals producer and culture policy expert.
She was born in 1975 in Brussels, the daughter of Rwandan exiles. [1] As a child, Carole Karemera excelled at mathematics and dreamed of opening a bakery. [2] Carole Karemera studied at the Royal Conservatory of Theater and Music in Belgium. In 1994, her father, a journalist, returned to Belgium as a result of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. [3] Carole Karemera first discovered Rwanda in 1995. [1]
She performed in several plays, such as Battlefield by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne, "We call it love " by Felwine Sarr, "Jaz" by Koffi Kwahulé, "Scratchin' the innerfields" by Wim Vandekeybus "The Bogus Woman' by Kay Adshead, and Anathema by Jacques Delcuvellerie, and simultaneously started her film career. [2] Between 2000 and 2004, she played the leading role in the Groupov's play "Rwanda 94". Her uncle, Jean-Marie Muyango, one the greatest Rwandan traditional musician, composed some score for the show. [3]
In 2005, Carole Karemera played the main role alongside Idris Elba in Raoul Peck's film Sometimes in April , about the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. [4] The same year, she decided to settle in Kigali. [1] Upon moving to the country, Carole Karemera became involved in cultural projects, including the first mobile library in Rwanda, the first Rwandan performing arts centre in Kigali/ISHYO, the Espace Madiba (library dedicated to African and Caribbean Literature) staged interactive plays in bars and in the streets of Rwandan cities, in order to develop new audience and communities for the arts. In 2007, Carole Karemera and seven other women established the Ishyo Arts Center in Kigali to support arts and culture's development in Rwanda. [1]
ISHYO Arts Centre is today one of the leading organisation in the arts sector and creative hub in Kigali. Ishyo produces and coproduces four festivals including KINA (for young audience), Home Sweet Home, Kuya Kwetu and Rencontres Internationales du Livre Francophone du Rwanda. Together with Cécilia Kankonda, she created an installation "The cathedral of sounds" composed with four generations of music artists and built from recordings of memories in which participants could tell their memories of Rwanda before and during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. [5]
In 2007, Carole Karemera also starred as Beatrice in the 2007 film Juju Factory . She received the Best Actress award at the Festival Cinema Africano in Italy. [6] She directed the play "Murs-murs", about the transmission of violence between women. [1]
Since 2009, Carole Karemera is involved in theater for young audience's development in the Great Lakes region. She co-coordinates Small citizens project aiming at training and supporting TYA's development and productions in Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Kenya and Uganda. She co-directed "Les enfants d'Amazi" with Le théâtre du Papyrus and Full-Fun, "Our house" & "Taking about silence" with Helios theater.
She is also the co-founder and coordinator of Assitej Rwanda, member of Assitej International. In 2024, she has been selected to be part of IETM Global Connectors.
Since 2020, ISHYO is co-leading the project "KESHO - le monde d'après?" with le Théâtre de la Poudrerie, a project dedicated to ecology and participatory arts, taking place in Rwanda and France.
Karemera has served as Board Director at the African World Heritage Fund, as Deputy Secretary General of Arterial Network, as well as the Arterial Network Country Representative in Rwanda. [7] She starred in Peter Brook's 2016 play Battlefield , based on The Mahabharata . [8] In 2018, she received an award at the Les Journées théâtrales de Carthage, honoring her work in the theatre in Rwanda and Africa. [9]
The Interahamwe is a Hutu paramilitary organization active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The Interahamwe was formed around 1990 as the youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development, the then-ruling party of Rwanda, and enjoyed the backing of the Hutu Power government. The Interahamwe, led by Robert Kajuga, were the main perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, during which an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi, Twa, and moderate Hutus were killed from April to July 1994, and the term "Interahamwe" was widened to mean any civilian militias or bands killing Tutsi.
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred between 7 April and 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide, the actual number of fatalities is unclear, and some estimates suggest that the real number killed was likely lower. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths.
Théoneste Bagosora was a Rwandan military officer. He was chiefly known for his key role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In 2011, the sentence was reduced to 35 years' imprisonment on appeal. He was due to be imprisoned until he was 89. According to René Lemarchand, Bagosora was "the chief organizer of the killings". On 25 September 2021, he died in a prison hospital in Mali, where he was being treated for heart issues.
The National Revolutionary Movement for Development was the ruling political party of Rwanda from 1975 to 1994 under President Juvénal Habyarimana, running with first Vice President Édouard Karemera. From 1978 to 1991, the MRND was the only legal political party in the country. It was dominated by Hutus, particularly from President Habyarimana's home region of Northern Rwanda. The elite group of MRND party members who were known to have influence on the President and his wife are known as the akazu. In 1991, the party was renamed the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development.
The Rwanda Defence Force is the military of the Republic of Rwanda. The country's armed forces were originally known as the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), but following the Rwandan Civil War of 1990–1994 and the Rwandan genocide of 1994 against the Tutsi, the victorious Rwandan Patriotic Front (Inkotanyi) created a new organization and named it the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). Later, it was renamed to its current name.
Mbaye Diagne was a Senegalese military officer who served in Rwanda as a United Nations military observer from 1993 to 1994. During the Rwandan genocide, he undertook many missions on his own initiative to save the lives of civilians.
Sometimes in April is a 2005 American made-for-television historical drama film about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, written and directed by the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The ensemble cast includes Idris Elba, Oris Erhuero, Carole Karemera, and Debra Winger.
Simon Bikindi was a Rwandan musician and singer who was formerly very popular in Rwanda. His patriotic and nationalist songs were playlist staples on the national radio station Radio Rwanda during the Rwandan Civil War. For his actions during the Rwandan genocide, he was tried and convicted for incitement to genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 2008. He died of diabetes at a Beninese hospital in December 2018.
Shake Hands with the Devil is a 2007 Canadian war drama film starring Roy Dupuis as Roméo Dallaire, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in August 2007. Based on Dallaire's autobiographical book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, the film recounts Dallaire's harrowing personal journey during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and how the United Nations didn’t heed Dallaire's urgent pleas for further assistance to halt the massacre.
On the evening of 6 April 1994, the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutu, was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as their jet prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda; both were killed. The assassination set in motion the Rwandan genocide, one of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.
Eric Kabera is a Rwandan journalist and filmmaker and founder and president of Rwanda Cinema Center.
Jerry Robert Kajuga was national president of the Interahamwe, the group largely responsible for perpetrating the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi people in 1994. Born to a Tutsi father and a Hutu mother, Kajuga concealed his background and presented himself as being of pure Hutu descent. This is notable as Hutu Power extremist groups considered Hutus who married Tutsis to be race traitors, and Kajuga went to great lengths to conceal his identity.
Yolande Mukagasana is a Rwandan writer writing in French who is a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
Scholastique Mukasonga is a French-Rwandan author born in the former Gikongoro province of Rwanda. In 2012, She won the prix Renaudot and the prix Ahmadou-Kourouma for her book Our Lady of the Nile. In addition to being a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Mukasonga was rewarded in 2014 with the Seligmann Prize against racism and intolerance and in 2015 with the prize Société des gens de lettres. She currently resides in Normandy, France.
Jean Hatzfeld is a French author and journalist who wrote extensively about the Bosnian War and the Rwandan Genocide in Rwanda.
The Rwanda Basketball League (RBL) (formerly the National Basketball League Rwanda) is the top professional basketball league in Rwanda. Its season usually runs from November to September. The winners of the NBL season qualify for the qualifiers for the Basketball Africa League (BAL).
In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a 2018 non-fiction book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever and published by Random House of Canada; it has also been translated into Dutch and French. The book describes alleged war crimes by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Rwanda's ruling political party, during its ascent to power in the 1990s.
Malaika Uwamahoro is a Rwandan-born actress, poet, singer, and social justice activist. She resides in Portland, Maine, United States.
France–Rwanda relations are the international relations between France and Rwanda.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
