PARIS — FIDH (International Federation of Human Rights) and global social media agency We Are Social have launched a campaign centered around a shocking trailer to a fake movie to raise public awareness about the risk of a genocide in Burundi and call out to the UN to intervene before it is too late.
The video entitled “Genocide in Burundi” A Film By Pierre Nkurunziza, the President of Burundi, is set out like a real movie trailer and created in the style of numerous films based on African tragedies such as “Hotel Rwanda”, “The Last King of Scotland” and “Johnny Mad Dog”. The campaign “Genocide in Burundi” #StopThisMovie has been created to showcase a powerful message that if the situation in Burundi continues to deteriorate, this fictional trailer could become an actual real-life movie in the not so distant future. The only movie you wouldn’t want to see.
“Presenting our campaign as a movie, a media which everyone can easily relate to, allows us to get our message to a large global audience. However Burundi’s descent into hell is no scenario written in Hollywood, it is really taking place right now. We must act before it is too late and take action to end the serious crimes that are currently being perpetrated in the country,” declared Dimitris Christopoulos, FIDH President.
At the end of the trailer, internet users are invited to sign a petition at https://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/burundi/genocide-in-burundi-preventing-this-scenario-from-becoming-a-reality. Written by Anschaire Nikoyagize, ITEKA president, the petition is a letter, a cry for help asking the UN to deploy a peacekeeping mission to protect the civilian populations and prevent a possible genocide.
A CAMPAIGN BASED ON THE MODEL OF A BLOCKBUSTER FILM LAUNCH
The “Genocide in Burundi” trailer will be presented on the French movie platform AlloCiné (similar to IMDB), as if it were a real movie trailer. It will also be shown for one week on an electronic billboard in New York’s Times Square from November 15-22, as well as in many French theaters as if it were a real movie trailer. To top it off, on social networks, FIDH will call out to a number of international public figures and movie stars with personalized messages, such as:
.@EmmaWatson After @HeForShe, we need YouForThem!
Please share this video and #StopThisMovie pic.twitter.com/HDan3xV95I
— FIDH (@fidh_en) November 15, 2016
We Are Social France have led the campaign strategy, creative idea, editorial plan, content creation, influencer outreach and media campaign including screenings in Times Square.
BEHIND THE FICTION, A REALITY: REPRESSION & GENOCIDAL DYNAMICS
The “Genocide in Burundi” #StopThisMovie campaign is designed to raise public awareness of the situation in Burundi highlighted in the report ‘Repression and Genocidal Dynamics in Burundi’ that FIDH reveals today (https://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/burundi/repression-and-genocidal-dynamics-in-burundi). This 200-pages report is based on facts and analyses compiled over several months, led by FIDH and ITEKA (the Burundian League for human rights). It demonstrates that crimes of the most serious nature are currently being committed in Burundi: murders, kidnappings, disappearances, torture, rape and massive detentions, ordered by the highest ranking officials.
Extremely worrying phenomenon: the government’s propaganda is founded on an ethnic ideology. It assimilates members of the opposition, of civil society, journalists and Tutsis as enemies of the regime. Enemies that must be eliminated. Burundi also just suspended its cooperation with the UN and withdrew itself from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
