The Height of Life
United States, 20m, Digital
A dreamer wakes up to find himself surrounded by four poetesses.
Director: Gilbert Ndahayo
Writer(s): Gilbert Ndahayo
Producer(s): Gilbert Ndahayo
Director of Photography: Jimmy DeMarco
Editor(s): Gilbert Ndahayo
Composer(s): Blake Wagner, Dennis Bryce Yaws
Cast: Seamus Boyle, Jamie Bock, Miranda Webster, Hannah Rose Corwin, Joyce Miller, Noelia Antweiler, Jamil More
Contact: Gilbert Ndahayo, g.ndahayo@me.com
About the Writer/Director
GILBERT NDAHAYO, was born in the Rwandan village of Astrida in 1975. He migrated to New York City in 2008. Ndahayo’s debut short film Scars Of My Days premiered on the French channel TV5 Monde and at the Tribeca Film Festival. Ndahayo was compelled to foray into the documentary filmmaking realm, after meeting his parents’ murderers. With the outbreak of the Rwandan genocide in his youth, his parents and 52 members of his immediate family were massacred. Ndahayo channeled his experiences into developing and producing several documentaries about the genocide he survived – Behind This Convent (2008), now titled Rwanda: Beyond the Deadly Pit, and its sequels The Rwandan Night (2013) and The Blood of The Chosen (recipient of 2015 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts). His films have been the subject of scholarly scrutiny in America and have also received Verona Award, Best Documentary Feature Award at the Santa Clara County Commendation and the U.S. House of Representatives Special Congregational Recognition award at the Silicon Valley Film Festival (2015). Ndahayo was the producer of Flores de Ruanda which, winner of the 2010 Goya Award. His footage earned him a co-directing credit on the feature documentary Life in a Day (Sundance 2011), directed by Kevin Macdonald and Executive Produced by Ridley Scott and YouTube. Ndahayo is the first Rwandan to be nominated for the African Movie Academy Awards, fondly referred to as the “African Oscars.”
