- The Rwandan Night is a feature ethno-documentary that is centered around the haunting memories of one of the oldest survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. One night, in the spring of 2006 before a large audience at Mumena stadium in the capital city of Rwanda, Sakindi bears witness to the story of his survival since 1959. Both poetic and moving, Ndahayo's use of original Rwandan music of commemoration, produces a vivid cinematic rendering of this unique voice forcefully testifying to the long ordeal of his people during so many decades before April 1994. Alternating between footage filmed in Kigali during a commemoration night and more recent testimonies of survivors and genocide scholars in the United States, Ndahayos second film creates a fascinating dialog between survivors and those who seek to understand the roots of genocide.—Dauge-Roth, Alexandre
- Over the course of barely a hundred days in 1994, Rwandan Hutus slaughtered nearly a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The victims of this Rwandan genocide included the parents and many other family members of documentary maker Gilbert Ndahayo. In 2011, he made a film about the death of his loved ones entitled "Rwanda: Beyond the Deadly Pit", in which he confronts his parents' murderers and wonders whether it is possible to rise above the trauma and forgive the perpetrators. In "The Rwandan Night", the first part of a proposed trilogy about the Rwandan genocide, Ndahayo attempts to initiate dialogue between survivors and those attempting to place the genocide into a broader context. Handheld shots of remembrance gatherings featuring chilling eyewitness accounts by survivors alternate with interviews with academic researchers. At the heart of the film is a long and mesmerizing monologue by Fidele Sakindi, who describes how as a four-year-old he survived the first genocide of 1959 and how the repeated flare-ups of ethnic violence have cast a dark shadow throughout his life. His testimony and the scenes of mass burials and grieving survivors are given an extra emotional color by original Rwandan memorial music, which always resonates with the same question: how is it possible that people who once broke bread together could go on to murder one another so gruesomely?—IDFA
- "The Rwandan Night" is a feature length ethno-documentary film that is centered around the haunted memories of one of the oldest survivors of the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi in Rwanda. One night, in the spring of 2006 before eleven thousands fellow survivors assembled at Mumena stadium in Kigali (the capital city of Rwanda), Sakindi bears witness to the harrowing story of his survival since 1959. Gilbert Ndahayo films with great emotional depth in a visual and a auditory language that is equally aesthetic and respectful to the pain and the long process of recovery from a lifetime history of violence. Both poetic and moving, Ndahayo's use of original Rwandan music of commemoration produces a vivid cinematic rendering of Sakindi's forceful testimonial regarding the countless ordeals and indignities his people suffered throughout the four decades of ethnic discrimination which reached it's apex during the April 1994 genocide. Alternating between guerrilla footage filmed in Rwanda and more contemporary testimonies of survivors and genocide scholars in the United States, Ndahayo creates a fascinating cinema-vérité account and artfully bridges the chasm between survivors and those who seek to understand the roots of genocide. "The Rwandan Night", the first sequel to his debut auto-documentary film "Rwanda Beyond The Deadly Pit" (in which the filmmaker confronts the murderers of his parents), is exposed upon more in depth in Gilbert Ndahayo's book, "Palace of Broken Memories".—Gilbert Ndahayo
- The Rwandan Night is a feature ethno-documentary that is center around the haunting memories of one of the oldest survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. One night, in the spring of 2006 before a large audience at Mumena stadium in the capital city of Rwanda, Sakindi bears witness to the story of his survival since 1959. Both poetic and moving, Ndahayos use of original Rwandan music of commemoration, produces a vivid cinematic rendering of this unique voice forcefully testifying to the long ordeal of his people during so many decades before April 1994. Alternating between footage filmed in Kigali during a commemoration night and more recent testimonies of survivors and genocide scholars in the United States, Ndahayos second film creates a fascinating dialog between survivors and those who seek to understand the roots of genocide.
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