Genocide Ignored: Documentary Producer Peter Raymont Screens, Discusses His Film Shake Hands with the Devil, February 2

Chestertown, MD, January 19, 2006 — Washington College's Goldstein Program in Public Affairs invites the public to a special screening of the film Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire, Thursday, February 2, 2006, at 7:00 p.m. in the College's Norman James Theatre. The film will be followed by an open question-and-answer session with the documentary's producer, Peter Raymont.

A gut-wrenching indictment of the United Nation's and the world's lack of response to the horrors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide as witnessed by Canadian Armed Forces Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, the film has been screened at The White House and at the United Nations and has received the prestigious Audience Award for World Documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005. The event is free and open to all.

Documentary filmmaker, journalist, and writer Peter Raymont has produced and directed more than 100 documentary films during a 33-year career. His films have taken him to Ethiopia, Nicaragua, India, Rwanda, the High Arctic, and throughout North America and Europe. He is the recipient of 35 international awards including the Canadian Genie for Best Documentary for The World Is Watching (1988)—a critical examination of the role and responsibility of the international media reporting from Nicaragua—and Gemini Awards for his six-hour fly-on-the-wall series on the business of hockey, The New Ice Age (1998), Arctic Dreamer: The Lonely Quest of Vilhjalmur Stefansson(2003), and The World Stopped Watching (2004).

Raymont's films are often provocative investigations of the "hidden worlds" of politics, the media, and big business, as well as Native, social, and human rights issues. His career began in 1971 at the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal where he worked as an editor, director, and producer for seven years. While at the NFB, he also taught film and video production in the Canadian Arctic. In 1978, Raymont moved to Toronto and established his own independent film and television production company, Investigative Productions.

With his new company White Pine Pictures, in partnership with Lindalee Tracey, Raymont recently completed Bhopal: The Search for Justice and The Undefended Border, following the work of Canadian Immigration Officers post 9/11. With such films as Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire and Bhopal to his credit, Raymont has had a significant impact on shaping attitudes about personal and collective responsibility and in bringing to light the important stories the world needs to hear. Since its release, Shake Hands with the Devil has been broadcast in 18 countries and translated into 13 languages.

Raymont has written for the Toronto Globe and Mailand Canadian Business Magazine and has produced a number of radio documentaries for the flagship CBC Current Affairs radio program, Sunday Morning.He is a founding member of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus, a lobby group that argues for an independent voice in Canada's film and television industry.

The film screening and discussion are sponsored by Washington College's Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, established in honor of the late Louis L. Goldstein, 1935 alumnus and Maryland's longest serving elected official. The Goldstein Program sponsors lectures, symposia, visiting fellows, travel, and other projects that bring students and faculty together with leaders in public policy and the media.