A new four-part series from acclaimed filmmaker, Raoul Peck, that pushes the boundaries of traditional documentary filmmaking, premieres tonight (9:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO.
Exterminate All The Brutes, offers an expansive exploration of the exploitative and genocidal aspects of European colonialism, from America to Africa and its impact on society today. The film’s HBO debut date coincides with the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda.
“As writers, creators, filmmakers we have no choice but to try and reflect our societies and give some sort of analysis of them the best way we can,” says Raoul Peck. “And as artists, we need to break the limits of our art.”
Based on the three works by authors and scholars – Sven Lindqvist’s “Exterminate All the Brutes,” Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States” and Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s “Silencing the Past.”
The genre-bending series offers a counter-narrative to white Eurocentric history, from the 12Th century Crusades through the presidency of Donald Trump, and artfully weaves together rich documentary footage and archival material. As well as dynamic animation and interpretive scripted scenes and aims to tell a sweeping story in which history, contemporary life and fiction are wholly intertwined. Peck meticulously disrupts formal and artistic film conventions, freely weaving together scripted and unscripted content.
Actor Josh Hartnett (“Pearl Harbor,” “Black Hawk Down”) will play the lead role in the scripted portions of the film.
Exterminates All The Brutes is a Pecks personal voyage into the darkest hours of humanity, in which Peck deconstructs the making and masking of history, digging deep into European white supremacy’s ideology. Peck challenges the audience to re-think the very notion of how history is being written.
The series will premiere tonight (9:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO with two back-to-back episodes. Then the final two episodes will air back-to-back on Thursday, April 8 at the same time. All four episodes of the series will be available to stream on HBO Max on April 7th to coincide with the linear premiere.
