The University of Cincinnati College of Law to Host Screening of Award-Winning Documentary on Survivors of Genocide

The University of Cincinnati College of Law’s

Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights

, along with Righteous Pictures, will host a screening of the award-winning documentary film "The Last Survivor." It tells the story of survivors from the Holocaust, Rwanda, Darfur and Congo atrocities. The screening will be followed by a question and answer session with Michael Kleiman, co-director of the film, and Kizito Kalima, a Rwandan survivor.  

Hailed by critics as “staggeringly powerful,” "The Last Survivor" follows the lives of the survivors as they seek to remind the world, and each other, that all share a common bond – our humanity.

“Each survivor’s story is one of triumph over trauma, and we hope that audiences respond to their courage and perseverance as much as we have,” Michael Pertnoy, the film’s co-director, explains. “When we made the film, our objective was not to dwell on the tragedies of the past, but rather to understand how we can prevent atrocities in the future.”

Shot in location in five countries across four continents, the film focuses on the universality of the horror of genocide, pointing out that it has occurred on nearly every continent. It stars 

• Hedi Fried, a survivor of the Holocaust. She now works as a psychologist, psychotherapist and educator.
• Jacqueline Murekatete, a Rwandan survivor recognized for her work as a youth leader and humanitarian. She is now a law student at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City.
• Justin Semahoro Kimenyerwa, a member of the Banyamulenge tribe of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Today, he lives in St. Louis, MO, working as a translator at Barnes Jewish Hospital, aiding refugees who are unable to communicate with doctors and nurses.
• Adam Bashar, a member of the Fur Tribe from Darfur. The first Darfuri minor to be granted the right to an education in Israel, he now works for the Tel Aviv municipality as a liaison between the city’s education department and 300 Darfuri students and their families.
  

This screening at the UC College of Law is part of The Last Survivor Outreach Campaign, which began April 2011 in recognition of Genocide Prevention Month. As genocide prevention becomes a major foreign policy priority, Righteous Pictures believes it is imperative that communities in the U.S. are educated about the factors and behaviors that lead to genocide so that they will be better equipped to take an active role in advocating against it and preventing it.

Key partners and supporters of this project include Mapendo International, Jacqueline’s Human Rights Corner, Save Darfur Coalition/Genocide Intervention Network (GI-NET), STAND, Student Led Division of GI-NET, Stop Genocide Now, Jewish World Watch, WITNESS, Hebrew Immigrant American Society, the Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, and the Bnai Darfur Coalition in Israel.

About Righteous Pictures

Righteous Pictures (RP) is a film production company and humanitarian organization founded in 2007 that creates socially driven documentary films and new media projects to serve as platforms for sustained dialogue and public engagement around the most critical global issues of our time. RP speaks with the voice of a new generation; they are a collective of artists and social activists committed to creative, character-based, global projects as a means to bring about social change. For more information on Righteous Pictures, please visit

www.righteouspictures

.com.

For more information  about "The Last Survivor" (and to see the trailer),  please visit

www.thelastsurvivor.com

or Facebook.com/TheLastSurvivor.