GLOBAL entertainment mainstreaming giant, Netflix, has acquired the full worldwide rights to Trees of Peace, a movie depicting the life of four women during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Produced by Hollywood actress Alanna Brown, the movie is inspired by actual events and follows four women from different backgrounds who forge an unbreakable bond while trapped in an underground room during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Netflix plans to debut the film this summer, which means it will be accessible to more than 222 million subscribers of the mainstreaming giant. Reacting to this, Brown said this milestone was her long-time dream. Actress Eliane Umuhire stars in the movie “I wrote the script for this film in 2014 and here I am now with a Netflix original film, which has been my dream for YEARS …. I can’t even describe the amount of persistence and gruelling effort it’s taken… which started with sustaining a belief in the value of this story and the value of my own voice to help tell it,” she posted on her Instagram page. Eliane Numuhire, a Rwandan actress who stars in the movie, also described the milestone as a greater step forward, highlighting that the story about the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi which is depicted in the movie is “concise and has a stronger message to the world”. Prior to this, the film also won the top three jury prizes at American Black Film Festival including the John Singleton Award for best first feature and earned the top jury award at Santa Barbara International Film Festival after it premiered there last year. Having written the movie script for eight years, the movie producer often said that she was inspired to write the story after meeting one of the survivors of the Genocide. After getting her story, she got inspired to curate something out of it, and moved on with more research including her visit to Rwanda where she spoke with more women survivors to put her movie script into motion. She said she was shocked by how Rwandans managed to forgive one another despite the tragedy of the past. “Their story is specific, but the themes of inner turmoil and forgiveness are incredibly universal,” she said. To write the feature movie, Brown was also inspired by the hurdles of women during the Genocide, and how Rwanda became the first country in the world with a female majority in parliament.
