Location | Kigali, Rwanda |
---|---|
Founded | 2005 |
Awards | Silverback Awards |
No. of films | most 100 (2012) [1] |
Language | International |
Website | inflatablefilm |
The Rwanda Film Festival, also known as Hillywood, is a film festival held annually in July in Kigali, Rwanda. The Rwanda Film Festival gained worldwide recognition over the past years and has become one of Africa's major film events.
The Rwanda Film Festival was founded in 2005 by Eric Kabera. [2] [3] Presented by the Rwanda Cinema Center, an organization that aims to promote the country's film industry, the Rwanda Film Festival, nicknamed "Hillywood" due to Rwanda's nickname of "Land of a Thousand Hills", is a travelling festival. Due to Kabera's desire to show the films to as large of an audience as possible, the festival is held not only in the capital of Kigali, but the films, especially ones made by Rwandan film-makers, are also shown on large inflatable screens in rural areas throughout the country. [4] More recently, Kabera has stated that the festival will make a move away from focusing only on the issue of the genocide; rather "other social issues" of modern Rwanda will be explored. [5]
The Silverback Awards were launched after the Silverback Sponsorship from London firm Hard Media with the Rwanda Film Festival. [6]
Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is highly elevated, giving it the soubriquet "land of a thousand hills", with its geography dominated by mountains in the west and savanna to the southeast, with numerous lakes throughout the country. The climate is temperate to subtropical, with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons each year. It is the most densely populated mainland African country; among countries larger than 10,000 km2, it is the fifth most densely populated country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Kigali.
Kigali is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is near the nation's geographic centre in a region of rolling hills, with a series of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. As a primate city, Kigali is a relatively new city. It has been Rwanda's economic, cultural, and transport hub since it was founded as an administrative outpost in 1907, and became the capital of the country at independence in 1962, shifting focus away from Huye.
Roméo Antonius Dallaire is a retired Canadian politician and military officer who was a senator from Quebec from 2005 to 2014, and a lieutenant-general in the Canadian Armed Forces. He notably was the force commander of UNAMIR, the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994, and for trying to stop the genocide that was being waged by Hutu extremists against Tutsis. Dallaire is a Senior Fellow at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) and co-director of the MIGS Will to Intervene Project.
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide, the actual number of fatalities is unclear, and some estimates suggest that the real number killed was likely lower. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths.
Hotel Rwanda is a 2004 docudrama film co-written and directed by Terry George. It was adapted from a screenplay by George and Keir Pearson, and stars Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo as hotelier Paul Rusesabagina and his wife Tatiana. Based on the Rwandan genocide, which occurred during the spring of 1994, the film documents Rusesabagina's efforts to save the lives of his family and more than 1,000 other refugees by providing them with shelter in the besieged Hôtel des Mille Collines. Hotel Rwanda explores genocide, political corruption, and the repercussions of violence.
The Rwanda Defence Force is the military of the Republic of Rwanda. The country's armed forces were originally known as the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), but following the Rwandan Civil War of 1990–1994 and the Rwandan genocide of 1994 against the Tutsi, the victorious Rwandan Patriotic Front (Inkotanyi) created a new organization and named it the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). Later, it was renamed to its current name.
Shake Hands with the Devil is a 2007 Canadian war drama film starring Roy Dupuis as Roméo Dallaire, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in August 2007. Based on Dallaire's autobiographical book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, the film recounts Dallaire's harrowing personal journey during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and how the United Nations didn’t heed Dallaire's urgent pleas for further assistance to halt the massacre.
A Sunday in Kigali is a 2006 Canadian feature film set during the Rwandan genocide. It is directed by Robert Favreau based on the novel A Sunday at the pool in Kigali by Gil Courtemanche.
100 Days is a 2001 drama film directed by Nick Hughes and produced by Hughes and Eric Kabera. The film is a dramatization of events that happened during the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda. The title of the film is a direct reference to the length of time that passed from the beginning of the genocide on 6 April until it ended in mid-July 1994.
Eric Kabera is a Rwandan journalist and filmmaker and founder and president of Rwanda Cinema Center.
India–Rwanda relations are the foreign relations between the Republic of India and the Republic of Rwanda. India is represented in Rwanda through its High Commission in Kigali which opened on 15 August 2018. Rwanda has been operating its High Commission in New Delhi since 1999 and appointed its first resident High Commissioner in 2001.
Lee Isaac Chung is an American filmmaker. His debut feature Munyurangabo (2007) was an official selection at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and the first narrative feature film in the Kinyarwanda language.
Kivu Ruhorahoza is a Rwandese film director, writer and producer. He is internationally known for his feature film Grey Matter which won the Jury Special Mention for Best Emerging Filmmaker at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival and the Ecumenical Jury special mention at the 2011 Warsaw Film Festival. He also won the Grand Prize of the Tübingen French Film Festival, Best Director and Signis Award of the Cordoba African Film Festival and the Jury Special Prize of the Khouribga African Film Festival in Morocco.
Mani Martin is a Rwandan singer, songwriter, actor and performing artist. He has won numerous awards. His unique musical sound that reflects the Afro-fusion, urban and traditional sounds has received National & international attention hence being described by "Rwanda Spectrum Magazine" as one of the best live music performing artists of the Rwandan music scene. Mani sings in Kinyarwanda, Kiswahili, English and French.
Thierry Dushimirimana is a Rwandan photographer and filmmaker.
Carole Umulinga Karemera is a Rwandan actress, dancer, saxophone player, and playwright.
Keepers of Memory is a 2004 documentary directed by Eric Kabera. It documents the eyewitness accounts and traumatic aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Finding Hillywood is a 2013 documentary film which examines the budding film industry in Rwanda.