Cultural music fans and historians in Kigali have a lot to keep them occupied this week. The Centre IRIBA pour le patrimoine Multimédia du Rwanda, Institut Français and Goethe-Institut has organised a socio-cultural event, as part of the UNESCO Day of Audiovisual Inheritance. 

The historical conference on the audio-visual reception of war, started yesterday at the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace in Gisozi. The conference will contemplate on the relation between the creation, distribution and reception of the violent use of music. The IRIBA Centre will recollect archives from Europe and Africa covering more than a century of Rwanda’s audio-visually documented history. 

The archives will soon be accessible to the public. Participants at the conference are from within and outside the country. Guest speakers include Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, historian and director of research at EHSS, Rithy Panh, filmmaker, founder and President of BOPHANA, Center for audio-visual research in Cambodia, the model that inspired IRIBA.

Others are Elizabeth Claverie, anthropologist and director of Research at CNRS, Hélène Dumas, historian and expert for the Gacaca system of jurisdiction in Rwanda. Gérard Lézou,   professor for literature at the University of Abidjan, Director of the UNESCO chair in Abidjan. Valérie Nivelon, journalist at RFI, news magazine, ‘La Marche du Monde’.