Rwandan Film Industry on the rise

The film Africa United was screened at the 2014 Rwanda Film Festival. It tells the story of three Rwandan children trying to get to the opening ceremony of the 2010 World Cup.

THE EASTAFRICAN

After the 1994 Rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, some Rwandans began to tell their stories through film.

The first man to do so was Eric Kabera who, in 2001, teamed up with British filmmaker Nick Hughes to make 100 Days. His film not only had a successful premiere in Kampala, Uganda, but it also went on to win the Best Cinematography Award in India. The film, aptly titled, brought to light what happened during the genocide when 1 million Rwandans were killed in a span of 100 days, subsequently inspiring the making of other films about the genocide by local and international filmmakers.

Most notable were the epic Sometimes in April, the compelling documentary Shake Hands With the Devil and Hotel Rwanda, which was based on what happened inside the Hotel des Mille Collines during the genocide.

Dozens of films about Rwanda’s 100 darkest days and the genocide became the defining element of the country’s new film industry. But as the industry grew, Rwandan filmmakers realized the need to make films that portrayed Rwanda as it is today.

For Kabera, the success of 100 Days became the inspiration for another project — the setting up of the Rwanda Cinema Centre to train upcoming filmmakers. The center, which opened in 2003, trained scriptwriters, producers, directors and editors, but still there was no film culture to speak of in Rwanda.

In 2005, Kabera started Rwanda’s first film festival, which he nicknamed Hillywood.

“Hillywood stands for cinema in the hills of Rwanda,” he said. The overriding aim of Hillywood, also known as the Rwanda Film Festival, was to serve as a platform for locally produced films and help local filmmakers interact with international filmmakers. During the annual festivals — the 10th edition was in July 2014 — local and international films are shown on big screens across the country.