Ben'Imana

For a long time, Rwandan cinema was primarily represented by foreign filmmakers who set up their cameras in this Central African land of a thousand hills to depict the horrific genocide of the Tutsis.

It wasn't until the 2010s that a generation of Rwandan filmmakers emerged, eager to tell their own version of history, far removed from the sensationalism surrounding the 1994 massacres. Directors like Kivu Ruhorahoza (Grey Matter), Joël Karekezi (The Mercy of the Jungle, TIFF ’18), Anisia Uzeyman (Neptune Frost, TIFF ’21), and Philbert Aimé Mbabazi Sharangabo (Minimals in a Titanic World), have all been committed to showing another aspect of their homeland their fellow citizens, and the national narrative.

For her first feature film, Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo follows in this tradition. Drawing on the accounts of women she met within the country, Dusabejambo decided to bring the gacaca courts — popular tribunals based in Rwandan traditional practice that were tasked with finding justice and promoting reconciliation after the genocide — to the screen. Is it really possible to forgive when your entire family has been wiped out or your body has been tortured? What about those who must carry the child of their abuser and raise it amid the perpetual shame of the trauma they have suffered?

With an almost entirely female cast (including the impressive Clémentine U. Nyirinkindi and Isabelle Kabano), Dusabejambo’s Caméra d'Or winner doesn't just give a voice to the silent victims. Through a powerful intergenerational narrative, it heals while empowering those born after 1994 to assert themselves.

CLAIRE DIAO

Content advisory: themes of violence, themes of sexual violence, bullying, mature themes