Oscar Nominated: New Boy
A glimpse of hope in the despair: A Rwandan immigrant struggles to fit in socially over the course of his first day at an Irish school. Short film adapted from Roddy Doyle's 2005 short story.
UPDATE: AJE report 'Veterans'
Few conflicts are imprinted in the public conscience as much as the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In one of Africa's bloodiest ever atrocities it is estimated as many as a million people from the country's Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus people could have been killed in a period of only about 100 days. Although now at peace Rwanda still has many wounds to heal and the reconciliation process has been painful for many veterans of the country's often forgotten longer civil war.
Part One
Part Two
Other films about the Rwandan Genocide:
Rape as a Weapon
Every conflict, Darfur/Burma/Congo/Rwanda/Zimbabwe/Bosnia/.., brings reports of sexual violence. In 2008 the UN finally classified rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war.
Rape As a Weapon - Mother Jones
How did rape become a weapon of war? - BBC
Amnesty Campaigns
Congo: War Against Women - CBS
The Weapon of Rape - NYT
Rape: Weapon of war - UN OHCHR
Should Rape Be Considered a Weapon? - radio interview with filmmaker behind the DR Congo documentary "The Greatest Silence"
PRI Radio The World:
Congo civil war
The scope of tragedy in eastern Congo defies comprehension. A war in the African country killed four-million people between 1998 and 2003. And fighting has continued -- among government forces, insurgents, militias, and Rwandan Hutu rebels. One of the most gruesome features of the conflicts is the widespread use of rape as a weapon. Armed groups use it to terrorize communities and control territories. Tens of thousands of women and girls have been attacked. The World's Jeb Sharp reports from Bukavu in Congo's South Kivu Province and on aid groups and grassroots activists responding to the crisis. - download & the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative mentioned
Shooting Dogs
Drama, also released as 'Beyond the Gates', based on real events and filmed at the locations depicted. The setting of the film is the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO) in Kigali, during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. John Hurt plays a Catholic priest and Hugh Dancy an English teacher, both Westerners, who are caught up in the events of the genocide.
Unlike Hotel Rwanda, which was filmed in South Africa using South African actors, the film was shot in the original location of the scenes it portrays. Also, many survivors of the massacre were employed as part of the production crew and minor acting roles.
The film's title refers to the actions of UN soldiers in shooting at the stray dogs that scavenged the bodies of dead. Since the UN soldiers were not allowed to shoot at the Hutus that had caused the deaths in the first place, the shooting of dogs is symbolic of the madness of the situation that the film attempts to capture. - Wiki
Download here [115min - 402mb]
UK viewers can watch @ BBC (until 23 Feb '09)
Although based on real events, some of the dramatised elements in the film have drawn some criticism: Does Shooting Dogs Lie?God Sleeps in Rwanda
The genocide wiped out much of the male population, leaving behind a country that was, suddenly, 70% female. Ironically, as much as survivors had to cope with the loss of family and innocence, the incident opened up new opportunities for women on domestic, political and business fronts.
In 2004, ten years on from the Genocide, the short documentary 'God Sleeps in Rwanda', explored the long-term aftermath on five young women who were orphaned in 1994, and who have faced difficult, life-altering choices in the years since.