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Anne Aghion

A filmmaker whose awards include an Emmy, a UNESCO Fellini Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Anne Aghion has been praised by critics as a documentarian who succeeds in conveying, without preconception, a strong sense of the people and places she covers.  Two of her previous films, which deal with post-genocide justice in Rwanda, are recognized as seminal works that have played a key “real-life” role both within Rwanda and across the globe.

Fascinated by people who survive extreme circumstances, Aghion chose as her latest project ICE PEOPLE, a feature-length documentary that explores the physical, emotional and spiritual adventure of living and conducting science in Antarctica, the earth’s coldest continent.  Based at McMurdo Station, the U.S. scientific research facility, Aghion and her crew spent four months on the ice, including seven weeks camping in the “deep field” with a small team of geologists searching for fossilized vegetation on Antarctic lakebeds estimated at 14-20 million years old.  Made with the support  of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program—which gave Aghion the longest film permit ever granted—ICE PEOPLE is already slated to air on Sundance Channel and on ARTE in 2008. The film also received major funding from ITVS International, and is timed for release during the 2007-2009 worldwide celebration of International Polar Year.  

Aghion’s most recent works, “Gacaca, Living Together Again In Rwanda?” and “In Rwanda we Say…The family that does not speak dies,” the first two of a trilogy, received accolades around the world.  Journalist Philip Gourevitch, author of “We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, Stories from Rwanda,” noted that Aghion “captures quite precisely much of what is most compelling and unsettling about Rwanda’s quest for justice after genocide.”  The broadcast of “Gacaca” on French television yielded “Special Picks” in eight of the country’s top national publications, along with reviews calling it “remarkable,” and “riveting,” and praising Aghion’s “open, human approach.”  When both films aired on Sundance Channel in April 2004 to mark the ten-year commemoration of the genocide, the Washington Post called “In Rwanda we say…” “astonishing,” and the Connecticut Post said they were “two of the best documentaries you are likely to see this year.” “In Rwanda we say…” won a 2005 Emmy Award; “Gacaca…” received the 2004 Fellini Prize from UNESCO.   

Filmed over the course of seven years in a tiny rural community, both films have been used by organizations involved with peace studies as a universal tool in understanding the “heart and mind” issues involved in bringing stabilization to a society after strife.  They have also screened in Rwanda—by NGOs as part of their training, and in programs to re-acclimate confessed perpretrators of genocide crimes, before release back into their communities.

The third film in the Rwanda trilogy is currently in production, for release in 2009.

Her first film, “Se Le Movio El Piso (The Earth Moved Under Him)—A Portrait of Managua” was the winner of the Havana Film Festival’s 1996 Coral Award for Best Non-Latin American Documentary on Latin America.  That film explored how slum dwellers in Nicaragua’s capital had survived a series of natural, political and economic disasters.

For most of her life, Aghion has been a dual resident of New York and Paris, working at The New York Times Paris bureau, and at the International Herald Tribune.  Moving into film, she worked in a variety of capacities including videographer, production and post-production manager, before producing and directing her own films.

Aghion was awarded a prestigeous Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005, and has received repeat grants from the Soros Documentary Fund, the Sundance Documentary Fund, and from the United States Institute of Peace.  She also received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Compton Foundation, the Peter S. Reed Foundation, and Oxfam-Novib.  In addition, she was able to generate funding for “In Rwanda we say…” from the Austrian Development Agency, the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Swiss Development Cooperation, thanks to the significant impact of “Gacaca...”

Anne Aghion holds a Bachelor of Arts Magna Cum Laude in Arab Language and Literature from Barnard College at Columbia University in New York, and following her studies, spent two years living in Cairo. 

Benoit Gryspeerdt, Producer

An independent film producer with an extensive background in the financial and production ends of the industry, Benoit Gryspeerdt joins Anne Aghion as a producing partner on ICE PEOPLE, following his work as production manager on her previous award-winning films, “In Rwanda we say…The family that does not speak dies,” and “Gacaca, Living Together Again in Rwanda?” 

Until recently, Gryspeerdt was Director of Finance and Administration at Ardèche Images which, among other activities, runs the Etats Généraux du Film Documentaire, one of the leading documentary festivals in France.

He spent 2001-2005 at Dominant 7, a Paris-based production company responsible for a long slate of internationally distributed, award-winning films. Joining the company as production manager and moving up to line producer and member of the senior management team, he worked on over a dozen projects in collaboration with major production companies, broadcasters and funders, including ARTE, Canal + and Studio Canal, BBC, the Soros and Sundance documentary funds, and more.  In addition to Aghion’s films, which were co-produced by Dominant 7, Gryspeerdt’s credits include the massive international co-production, “Steps for the Future,” an 8-hour package of programming about HIV/AIDs in southern Africa that crossed seven countries, and involved 14 international broadcasters and numerous organizations including UNICEF and NORAID; director Karim Aïnouz’s  2002 feature biopic about eponymous Brazilian cultural hero “Madame Sata,” which premiered at Cannes and went on to win 21 international awards, with nominations for 14 more; and the critically acclaimed 2005 BBC film, “Don’t F*** with Me, I have 51 Brothers and Sisters.”

Prior to Dominant 7, Gryspeerdt was Financial Director for MK2, one of Europe’s leading film companies, where he oversaw reporting in areas including feature and television production and distribution, international sales, home entertainment and theatrical exhibition. He started his work at the company as internal auditor, working on the catalogue acquisition of important libraries including CIBY 2000 and François Truffaut’s former company, Les Films du Carosse.  He began his career at the television- and film-acquisition arm of TF1, where he helped develop rights management software.

A native of Lille, France, Gryspeerdt is a 2005 graduate of the highly competitive producer-training program, Eurodoc, which he attended with ICE PEOPLE.  He holds a Masters of Science in Personnel Management and Business Administration from France’s Edhec Business School. 

He is currently developing additional projects with award-winning filmmakers Michka Saäl and Aldo Lee.  

Nadia Ben Rachid, Editor

ICE PEOPLE is editor Nadia Ben Rachid’s third collaboration with filmmaker Anne Aghion, following their work on Emmy-winner “In Rwanda we say…The family that does not speak dies,” (2005) and the UNESCO Fellini Prize-winner, “Gacaca, Living Together Again in Rwanda?” (2003) 

With the rare talent to work equally well with documentaries and features, Paris-based Ben Rachid has amassed dozens of film, television and commercial credits since 1997. She has edited all the films by the world-renowned director Abderrahmane Sissako, the latest of which is the 2006 feature, “Bamako,” which played at major showcases around the world, including the Cannes and New York film festivals. Following its stellar box office performance in France, the film was distributed to critical acclaim worldwide, including in the U.S. via New Yorker Films. In 1999, her work on Sissako’s “Life on Earth” earned Ben Rachid the Editor’s Award at FESPACO (Ouagadougou Pan African Festival for Film and Television). The film premiered at Cannes and went on to collect numerous awards at festivals around the world, including the Golden Spire at the San Francisco International Film Festival. 

Ben Rachid also works regularly with noted French director Yamina Benguigui, including on her 2002 feature “Inch’Allah Dimanche”; the documentary “The Perfumed Garden,” which won Best Documentary for that year at the African and Caribbean Film Festival (Vues d’Afrique) in Montreal; and a segment of the acclaimed 1998 documentary “Mémoires d’immigrés.”

Among numerous other projects, she edited Michka Saäl’s 2005 “Beckett’s Prisoners” for the National Film Board of Canada; the 1999 documentary “Woubi Cheri” for award-winning documentarians Philip Brooks and Laurent Bocahut; which garnered Best Documentary awards at the New Festival in New York, the Turin Festival in Italy, and the Transgender Festival in London; and Rachid Bouchareb’s first feature,”My Family Honor.”

Ben Rachid’s commercial work includes the trailer for The Michael Jackson Tour, for legendary producer Tarek Ben Ammar.  Among her credits as assistant editor are Roman Polanski’s “Bitter Moon,” “Frantic” and “Pirates”; Claude Berri’s “Germinal” and “Uranus”; Roland Joffe’s “City of Joy”; Jacques Perrin’s “The Children of Lumière”; and Agneska Holland’s “The Conspiracy.”

Sylvestre Guidi, Director of Photography 

A top Franco-Canadian cinematographer, Sylvestre Guidi has amassed more than 20 years of documentary production experience, filming from the top of the world—on the  2005 award-sweeping series "Arctic Mission," by biologist-filmmaker Jean Lemire—to the bottom on ICE PEOPLE.  Based in Montreal, he has collaborated repeatedly with noted directors including Michka Saäl and Patricio Henriquez, and works regularly on films for the National Film Board of Canada, which air on ARTE, BBC, Discovery and other top television networks across the globe.  Guidi spent ten years living in Mexico City as a cameraman and editor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, covering South America and the Caribbean.

Guidi has earned four nominations and a 1993 win for the Gémeaux—the Canadian Academy awards for French-language television.  A graduate in film from Concordia University in Montreal, Guidi also studied television production at the Université de Québec à Montréal.  He is fluent in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Richard Fleming, Sound Recordist

Since 1990, Richard Fleming has traveled the world, recording sound in temperatures ranging from 120°F to -70°F. Among his numerous credits are the documentaries "From Kansas to Kandahar," by noted director Cal Skaggs for the PBS series "America at a Crossroads," Henry Corra’s "Same Sex America," which aired on Showtime, "Kofi Annan : Center of the Storm," by renowned filmmaker David Grubin for PBS; "Miracle Babies," by Academy Award-nominee Katja Esson and "Les Illuminations de Madame Narval," by Charles Najman, both for the Franco-German television channel Arte.  He also recorded sound for "Sumo East and West,"  by Ferne Pearlstein, and "Iron Butterfly, The Story of Imelda Marcos," by Ramona Diaz, both for ITVS.  His dramatic credits include the multiple award-winning theatrical feature "La Ciudad," by David Riker and Dean Silvers’s "Rock the Boat," which aired on HBO.

With ICE PEOPLE, Fleming, who is New York-based, rejoins Anne Aghion on location, following his work on the director’s previous film, the Emmy-winner "In Rwanda we say…The family that does not speak dies."

Read Richard's blog, A Brooklynite on the Ice. It features lots of the filmmakers' adventures during the four-month shoot in Antarctica.