Anne Aghion has been praised as a filmmaker of poetic vision and a unique documentarian whose films, in the words of one critic, “pull us deep into the social fabric” of the places she covers.
She gained international renown for THE GACACA SERIES (pr. ga-CHA-cha), four films on post-genocide justice and social reconstruction in Rwanda. There, Anne Aghion charted the emotional impact of a controversial system of justice that returned killers to their homes to live side-by-side with the survivors of unimaginable violence. The final film in the series, MY NEIGHBOR MY KILLER, premiered in Official Selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival; was nominated for Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards; and earned Anne Aghion the Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. Additionally, other films in the series received an Emmy Award and the UNESCO Fellini Prize.
The 2007 feature ICE PEOPLE was described by Variety as “staggeringly beautiful,” and New York Magazine’s noted critic Bilge Ebiri wrote that “it might be the most immersive documentary I’ve ever seen.” The film, which explores the physical, emotional and spiritual adventure of living and conducting science in Antarctica, was produced with ARTE France and ITVS International in association with Sundance Channel. Her award-winning 1996 directorial debut SE LE MOVIO EL PISO : A PORTRAIT OF MANAGUA (The Earth Moved Under Him), examines how Nicaraguan slum dwellers had survived the double ravages of political and natural disasters.
Anne Aghion has earned a host of grants from such organizations as the United States Institute of Peace, the National Science Foundation, the French Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, and the Soros and Sundance Institute Documentary Funds. She has had residencies at the MacDowell Colony in the United States, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy, and at the Camargo Foundation in France. Additionally she was selected for a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship to India.
She has served as a juror for La Scam’s L’Œil d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the El Gouna Film Festival and the International Documentary Association (IDA), among others. She is an international speaker at universities and has conducted documentary workshops and master classes at film programs in countries including Haiti, India, Morocco, Lebanon, France and the United States. She serves on the board of Camargo Foundation’s French association.
Anne Aghion holds a degree in Arab Language and Literature from Barnard College at Columbia University in New York. She spends her time between New York and France.