Films like Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland, based on true stories, have captured the interest of millions. However, outside of cinema, African conflicts are less captivating for the general public. How can we raise awareness about tragedies being written in real life? To get people to react before another catastrophe happens, FIDH anticipated the worst possible scenario with “Genocide in Burundi” a trailer to a fake movie; the first movie whose release you must stop. The video, created in the style of numerous films based on African tragedies was set out as a real movie trailer. The campaign, with a powerful call to action #StopThisMovie, has been created to showcase a powerful message that if the situation in Burundi continues to deteriorate, this fictional trailer could become a real life movie in the not so distant future and became the only movie you wouldn’t want to see.

The launch of the film employs all of the marketing techniques of a traditional blockbuster film: world premieres in Paris and New York, a showing of the trailer on a giant screen in Times Square, as well as in numerous cinemas, a digital and social media campaign that borrowed the language and culture of cinema fans and drove conversation. Set out as a real movie trailer, Genocide in Burundi has a page on cinema platform AlloCiné - IMDB’s European equivalence- where cinema fans could discover the trailer, the awards (“Worst Scenario Film Festival”, “Golden Bloodbath Award”, backstage secrets (“abuse of power”, “carte blanche to torture & kill”, “incitement to hatred”), along with featuring the government’s key people in the casting section and an interview with a survivor. Additionally, FIDH has called out to a number of international public figures with personalized messages to encourage them to tweet #StopThisMovie.

The campaign generated international awareness around the alarming burundese situation in social media and most of all grabbed the attention of the international community.

The trailer was seen 2 million times, the campaign generated press coverage in 56 countries and most of all drove conversations with over 20,000 tweets and 2 Trending Topics in France and Kenya. Under the unwanted media pressure, Burundi's spokesman launched the distasteful hashtag #ThisIsMyGenocide. Supposedly created to mock the FIDHs' warning of a risk of genocide the hashtag was used to portray that nothing was happening in Burundi. His attitude however prompted the people of Burundi to no longer keep their mouths shut and express their outrage over the government’s remarks. 7 days later, FIDH was invited to argue its cause at the United Nations.

#StopThisMovie is a shocking campaign that builds on the entertainment culture in order to raise awareness around an alarming real-life situation. Everyone can relate to a film trailer, and it's a creative way to get our message out to a large global audience. The idea was to use fiction to denounce the torture and the escalation of repression happening in Burundi, to show people 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 they wouldn’t want to see.

Films based on true African stories such as Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, have captured the interest of millions. But when it comes raising international public awareness about a real-life alarming situation in Africa, it’s harder to grab the interest of millions. Because everyone can relate to a film trailer, and it's a creative way to get a message out to a large global audience, we decided to launch a shocking campaign: Genocide in Burundi #StopthisMovie. Set out as a real trailer, created in the style of numerous films about African tragedies, the campaign was deployed with all the codes used for launching blockbusters, with the objective to show 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 they wouldn’t want to see.

In November 2016, the FIDH (International Federation of Human Rights) published “Repression and Genocidal Dynamics in Burundi”, a 200-page report demonstrating that crimes of the most serious nature were being committed in Burundi and ordered by the highest ranking officials: murders, kidnappings, disappearances, torture, rape and massive detentions, ordered by the highest ranking officials.

Our main challenge was to denounce the atrocities committed in this dictatorial country where censorship and persecution are part of everyday life and and to raise international public awareness about the alarming situation which reminds us of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Our final goal was to grab media attention and call out to the UN to intervene.