Lone Star International Film Festival 2009

In 1994, when Rwanda’s Hutu populace was incited by the government-supported ethnic cleansing of the country’s Tutsi minority, 800,000 lives were claimed in 100 days. Winner of the Nestor Almendros Prize for Courage in Filmmaking (Human Rights Watch), this powerful and heart-wrenching film follows Rwanda’s new regime government’s Gacaca (ga-CHA-cha - open-air hearings) of 1999, in which citizen-judges publicly tried their neighbors, released from prison, who had slaughtered their families. Designed to reunite the country, empty the incomprehensibly full prisons and help rebuild the nation, the despair, fear and resignation, accusations and defenses, wisdom, lies, power of betrayal and need to forgive and be forgiven reveal unusual glimpses into the depths of the collective community. Janis Jolcuvar