Rwanda Film Festival returns

What has changed about the Rwanda Film Festival in the nine years of its existence? Many things. For starters, this year’s festival is being marked under a unique theme: “Our Mothers, Our Heroes.” In fact, all 49 film entries were selected according to the role of women and representation of different themes on family related issues. The selection process itself was no easy task, because at least 65 per cent of the films chosen to be in the official selection had to be directed, written or produced by a female filmmaker. At the pre-launch event press conference at the Goethe Institute in Kiyovu yesterday morning, the founder and chairman of the festival, Eric Kabera announced that unlike in previous years, the 2013 festival would be celebrated in two phases; the Kigali Premiere, and what has been dubbed “Hillywood”, which is basically public screenings in the select upcountry towns of Musanze, Rubavu and Huye. Talking of the Kigali Premiere, it was a red carpet, invites-only affair that happened at the new Century Cinema at the Kigali City Tower last night. Not only was it invites-only, it was not free. Even for journalists, it was only those that secured their press passes well in advance that made it to the red carpet event. But no need to worry incase you missed out on the launch. If you are in and around Kigali, you can still catch subsequent screenings in the select locations of New Papyrus Bar, Kigali Public Library, the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center at Gisozi, and Club Rafiki. The Century Cinema premiere opened with the documentary film, Mama Africa, by the German-South African director Mika Kaurismaki. This is the story of world-famous South African singer Miriam Makeba, who spent half a century travelling the world spreading her political message to fight racism, poverty and promote justice and peace. It is a tribute to a woman who embodied the hopes and the voice of Africa as no other. Among the movie categories that will be screened all week long are; fiction, animation, documentaries, and feature length movies. If you want something home grown, well, there are six locally produced films from which to choose; Special Thief, Behind the Word, Maama, Nziramba, Kivutu, and Imbabazi. But even as our appetites were being whetted about the local movies on show, there was no single local movie director at yesterday’s press conference. What we had, instead, were the organisers taking turns to introduce the foreign movie directors and what movies they laid claim to. Short of local film directors to show, the organisers, led by Eric Kabera, instead took to introducing foreign journalists to the few local journalists that attended. The lack of local reporters at the event was, at the very least, telling, and at the very most, distasteful. Truth be told, it defeated the whole purpose of an event aptly named the Rwanda Film Festival. After the press conference, the international reporters carted off their gizmos to the nearby Heaven Restaurant, most probably for a hearty meal before hitting Kigali City Tower for the red carpet, invites-only premiere. If one had walked into the press conference unknowingly, they would have been excused for mistaking it for a Hollywood, not Rwanda Film Festival. Still, Kabera insisted that; “Hillywood is more about taking edu-tainment to the people in the rural communities without access to modern technology and cinemas.” On why he embarked on establishing Rwanda’s first ever film school, Kabera said: “I had watched several movies produced in Rwanda by foreigners and the idea of the local people producing their own movies clicked in my mind thus leading to the formation of the Rwanda Film Centre.”