Janvier Katabarwa

'Janvier Katabarwa' (qv) was born in south province of Rwanda and moved to Montreal,Canada at age of 19 . He always had a passion for acting and theatre. As a child growing up in Rwanda, he engaged in performance arts ranging from traditional dances , traditional wrestling and art forms to martial arts. It started with performances in AERG (Genocide Survivors Students Association) with themes centered on 1994 genocide against Tutsi commemoration, ensuring history was never distorted or forgotten. He Started Karate at the age of 11 for self defense and briefly martial arts become passion till today. He was the youngest when he joined national team. .In addition to Karate (Shotokan and Kyokushinkai) , he is also extensively trained in kickboxing Kobudo and Judo. . However, after his university studies in accounting passion of acting and story telling weighted more. He noticed that in the few cases where there was a Rwandan or African character, it was always a stereotypical role of how Rwandans or Africans as people are regarded by others. Even fewer ones who told their story portrayed it their way, how they imagined them. Like the saying "until the lion learns to speak the tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter." . He realized there was a need for more Rwandans ,Africans filmmakers to own or get involved in projects whose direction and ultimate message they can determine. This is what prompted him to leave his career in the oil industry in Grande Prairie Alberta and move to Vancouver to pursue his long-held dream despite many challenges to put Rwandans and Africans on the world map. . One might wonder why he chose to begin his first film he produced engagement with the action drama genre . As Rwandan, Rwanda has many stories in history as a country that can serve as a stronger-than-most premise for such themed movies. This is his ultimate goal as a filmmaker. To give a platform to those stories in his small but great country's history that sound to most people like Hollywood scripts. The stories of those people who represent what he and Rwandans know and believe. His dream job as an actor would be to portray Some of Rwandan Heroes and the black samurai Yasuke.::'Janvier Katabarwa' (qv)