I’m really lucky to have amazing friends and family that think about me and hit me up with they think something might interest me. I was truly lucky this month to have multiple people, and to be getting involved in a community of filmmakers and artists in New York, that told me about the film Kinyarwanda (2011) directed by first time feature director Alrick Brown. (kudos kudos kudos!!)

I’m excited about this film for many reasons, it stars some really powerful black female actresses in really tough roles which they pulled off dynamically. I was lucky enough to meet actress Cassie Freeman who plays one of the main characters Lt. Rose in the film and I barely recognized her at first. This is one of the films in the theater where my three friends and I literally laughed, cried, gasped, and were stricken at different moments. It is really wonderful, touching, difficult, and a learning experience.

The film itself blew me away, it is woven together through multiple small stories, that come from first hand experiences, and tells the story of how many Tutsi and Hutu families fared during the Rwanda genocide.

The more I hear about how the film came to be the more excited I am. Apparently the orignal funding was given to a Rwandan taxi driver by a muslim organization who wanted people to know about the important role that muslims played saving many people during the genocide by opening mosques to hide fleeing Rwandans of Tutsi ethnic origin. He wrote up his story, got in touch with a peace corps member, and then they linked up with Alrick Brown. He flew to Rwanda and together they researched, spoke to many Rwandans, and then wrote up six stories that created the script. It’s more amazing still when you find out that there are only a few professional actors in the film, everyone else is a Rwandan who wanted to tell their story and finally found a way to do so.

In a talkback with Cassie Freeman and Michaela Angela Davis, former fashion editor of Essence, Honey, and Vibe and currently lead activist of Free the Girls, it was so powerful to learn which actors in the film were acting out and telling their own stories. Imagine a little boy sent out to get cigarettes leading youth of Hutu decent back to his home where his parents are hiding Tutsi refugees because he is too young to understand what is going on. A priest is tested by his Hutu ethnicity, is he more loyal to that or to his vow to protect those who come to him in need of that protection? Young Rwandans who didnt get to grow up in their home country because of a history of violence become soldiers in Uganda and come back to free and protect their kinsmen. These are stories that we know nothing of.

Though I love the movie Hotel Rwanda and I give it many props because it came first and many people would know nothing of the genocide without it, on the ground Cassandra Freeman said, many Rwanans didnt feel that it really told their story. When Kinyarwanda was released in Rwanda however, people travelled miles to come see it, and stayed out all night afterwards, telling their stories.

It’s a film about forgiveness and about patriotism, about loss and remembrance, about working through something as a country. After the genocide the Rwandan goverment set up one on one apologies all over the country, which worked with soldiers of Hutu descent acknowledging what they had done and having to make personal apologies. This is another story told in the film, and it’s one that was particularly deep for me.

This film is worth supporting, not just waiting for the DVD but seeing it wherever and whenever you have the opportunity to do so. There are limited screening across the country, and I saw the film when it was here in New York. For more information, the trailer, etc, please visit the Kinyarwanda movie site.

Here is a story summary from the website:

The Story of Kinyarwanda

During the Rwandan genocide, when neighbors killed neighbors and friends betrayed friends, some crossed lines of hatred to protect each other.

At the time of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Mufti of Rwanda, the most respected Muslim leader in the country, issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims from participating in the killing of the Tutsi. As the country became a slaughterhouse, mosques became places of refuge where Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis came together to protect each other. KINYARWANDA is based on true accounts from survivors who took refuge at the Grand Mosque of Kigali and the madrassa of Nyanza. It recounts how the Imams opened the doors of the mosques to give refuge to the Tutsi and those Hutu who refused to participate in the killing.

KINYARWANDA interweaves six different tales that together form one grand narrative that provides the most complex and real depiction yet presented of human resilience and life during the genocide. With an amalgamation of characters, we pay homage to many, using the voices of a few.