History, trauma and remembering in Kivu Ruhorahoza’s<i>Grey Matter</i>(2011)

Cieplak, Piotr

doi:10.1080/13696815.2016.1244476

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(8 reference statements)

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“…The cockroach was a derogatory image used against the Tutsis as an extreme form of othering and dehumanization. Grey matter is among the first Rwandan genocide films which does not depict the actual atrocities committed but confines itself to portray them through their haunting aftermath (Cieplak, 2018), providing a “psychoanalytic study of interrelated forms of trauma” (Ekotto, 2013, p. 233). Doing so, it expresses criticism against the present Rwandan memory policies which are based on the doctrine of reconciliation and the propagation of Rwandan unity.…”

Section: Grey Matter—survivor Guilt and The Perpetuation Of Traumamentioning

confidence: 99%

Filmic Therapeutic Encounters and Resistance: Silence, Forgetting, and Guilt in the Face of Historical Violence

Basaran¹

2021

Journal of Humanistic Psychology

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Mental disorder and therapeutic encounters are central aspects of three films that were groundbreaking in addressing collective trauma in the aftermath of slavery, colonialism, or genocide: Peele’s GET OUT (USA), Ruhorahoza’s GREY MATTER (Rwanda) and Mhando and Mulvihill’s MAANGAMIZI—THE ANCIENT ONE (Tanzania/USA). Recurring to theories of collective memory and trauma, the article assumes that asymmetric historical violence causes a crisis of reason among the victims, and that the affective dream-like technique of film has the potential to make unutterable mental conditions explicit and relatable without trivializing their complexities. Oppression is usually perpetuated by an alliance of domination with forgetting, silencing, and a sense of guilt, inflicted on the victims who are thereupon labeled as overly sensitive, moronic, or insane. The films depict mental conditions caused by collective trauma which are expressed by haunting memories, ancestral visions, or victims being possessed by their oppressors. A central element is the depiction of problematic therapeutic encounters which may be abusive, manipulative or turn the patient–therapist relation upside down. By challenging notions of therapy and critically addressing its potential embeddedness in power relations, it is argued, the films themselves serve as a form of postcolonial therapy and empowerment.

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Section: Grey Matter—survivor Guilt and The Perpetuation Of Traumamentioning

confidence: 99%

Filmic Therapeutic Encounters and Resistance: Silence, Forgetting, and Guilt in the Face of Historical Violence

Basaran¹

2021

Journal of Humanistic Psychology

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“…Faye’s novel and Ruhorahoza’s film capture the vulnerability, porosity and unpredictability of family memories with such power in part because their fictional forms allow them to move outside of the witnessing function of testimony or the narrative role of performance and into realms of fantasy and the symbolic. Piotr Cieplak (2018), writing about Matière grise , argues that in contrast with international films that tend to emphasize the causality between traumatic events and their effects, Matière grise ‘refuses the option of mastery over not only the History of the genocide but also its individual, personal histories ’ (p. 174). As a result these histories are impossible to contain, even unreadable (Cieplak, 2018: 174).…”

Section: Fiction: Affiliative Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Piotr Cieplak (2018), writing about Matière grise , argues that in contrast with international films that tend to emphasize the causality between traumatic events and their effects, Matière grise ‘refuses the option of mastery over not only the History of the genocide but also its individual, personal histories ’ (p. 174). As a result these histories are impossible to contain, even unreadable (Cieplak, 2018: 174). It is this lyrical uncontained nature that is perhaps what connects so profoundly with the dynamics of family relationships in peace, as in war.…”

Section: Fiction: Affiliative Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Papaoutai’? Family memory, parental loss and Rwandan artists today

Norridge

2019

Memory Studies

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This article explores how family framings of childhood experiences of violence shape Rwandan artistic responses to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. It examines work by both child survivors of genocide and Rwandans who grew up in exile. This enables consideration of the longer legacies of violence that began against the Tutsi nearly 60 years ago, alongside the more recent aftermath of genocide. While child survivor narratives frame memory as fragile, an ongoing challenge negotiated alongside the demands of daily life and remaining family relationships; returnee narratives demonstrate a stronger intergenerational historical thread, which is nevertheless complicated by the overlaying of parental memories with the younger generation’s personal contact with violence. Drawing on specific examples of artistic testimony – two memoirs, a photo essay, two solo performances, a feature film and a novel – this analysis links different genres with particular framings of family memory and examines complex identities in post-genocide Rwanda.

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History, trauma and remembering in Kivu Ruhorahoza’sGrey Matter(2011)

Cited by 2 publications

References 18 publications

Filmic Therapeutic Encounters and Resistance: Silence, Forgetting, and Guilt in the Face of Historical Violence

Filmic Therapeutic Encounters and Resistance: Silence, Forgetting, and Guilt in the Face of Historical Violence

‘Papaoutai’? Family memory, parental loss and Rwandan artists today

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