Please join Reel Progress, HBO Films and BeAWitness.org for a screening of
Sometimes in April
Reel Progress, HBO Films and Be A Witness.Org are pleased to invite you to a screening of HBO Films’ Sometimes in April, a gripping drama inspired by true events surrounding one of history’s darkest chapters: the 100 days of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. This extraordinary film tells the story of the Rwandan genocide by tracing the lives of two brothers – one in the military, one a radio personality – whose lives and country are changed overnight in unimaginable ways. Sometimes in April – the first major film about the Rwandan genocide to be shot on location – is not only an epic story of courage in the face of daunting odds, but an exposé of the West’s inaction as nearly a million Rwandans were being killed in the course of 100 days. One year ago, President Bush declared that a genocide was unfolding in the Darfur region in Sudan. Today, the genocide continues to unfold. It is time for the world to learn the lessons of Rwanda once again.
Featuring introductory remarks by Gayle Smith, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and former senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Screening starts at 6:15 PM
Admission is free. Pizza will be served beginning at 6:00 PM
Center for American Progress
1333 H Street NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
RSVP Required. Space is limited.
Nearest Metro:
Red Line – Metro Center
Blue/Orange Lines – McPherson Square
To RSVP:
Click here to register
Or call 202.741.6246
About the Participants
Gayle Smith has spent most of her career in international affairs in the field, based in Africa for almost 20 years as a journalist and advisor to non-governmental organizations. Her areas of expertise include African affairs, economic development, complex political emergencies, crisis prevention and post-conflict management, failed states and transnational threats. In 1998, she was appointed special assistant to the president and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council. Prior to that, she served for five years as senior adviser to the administrator and chief of staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Smith negotiated a ceasefire between Uganda and Rwanda in 1999 and won the National Security Council’s Samuel Nelson Drew Award for Distinguished Contribution in Pursuit of Global Peace for her role in the successful negotiation of a peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Smith has traveled extensively in active war zones, published pioneering analyses of complex political emergencies and humanitarian intervention and covered military, economic and political developments in East and North Africa for the BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Toronto Globe & Mail, London Observer and Financial Times until the mid-1980s. She won the World Journalism Award from the World Affairs Council and the World Hunger Year Award in 1991. Smith has also consulted for a wide range of non-governmental organizations, foundations and international governmental agencies, including UNICEF, the World Bank, Lutheran World Relief, Dutch Interchurch Aid and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.
Smith is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an adviser to the U.N. Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa. She was a member of the Commission on Capital Flows sponsored by the Institute for International Economics and the Corporate Council on Africa, and now serves as a member of the Center for Global Development’s Commission on U.S. Policy Toward Low-Income Poorly Performing States. She is a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, where she recently co-authored The Other War: Global Poverty and the Millennium Challenge Account. Smith serves as a Trustee of the Africa America Institute and as an independent consultant.