The Rwandan Genocide on Film: Critical Essays and Interviews

The Rwandan genocide remains one of the most controversial and shameful events of the 20th century. For most Westerners, there understanding of the genocide has come through the Oscar-winning film Hotel Rwanda and the critically acclaimed Shooting Dogs. Yet how accurate are these films in presenting what actually happened in Rwanda in 1994? How has the genocide been portrayed on film and why primarily only through a Western perspective that is guilty of presenting a distorted truth of what went on in Rwanda? This collection explores a wide variety of feature films and documentaries associated with the Rwandan Genocide through new scholarship from a number of writers connected to African and Genocide studies as it attempts to explore the aftermath of the genocide and its expression both in Western and Rwandan cinema. The book also features exclusive interviews with a number of filmmakers who have made films relating to, or about, the Rwandan Genocide. The interviewees include investigative journalist Steve Bradshaw on his trilogy of films for BBC's Panorama, an interview with 100 days director Nick Hughes (Matthew Edwards), director Lee Isaac Chung on his film award-winning film Munyurangabo (Matthew Edwards) and an interviews with Rwandan filmmakers Eric Kabera and Kivu Ruhorahoza.