A Sunday in Kigali

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Un dimanche à Kigali
Country of production Canada
original language French
Publishing year 2006
length approx. 118 minutes
Rod
Director Robert Favreau
script Robert Favreau
production Lyse Lafontaine ,
Michel Mosca
music Jorane
camera Pierre Mignot
cut Helene Girard
occupation

A Sunday in Kigali ( Un dimanche à Kigali ) is a Canadian film drama from the year 2006 . It is based on the novel A Sunday by the Pool in Kigali ( Un dimanche à la piscine à Kigali ) by Gil Courtemanche . The theme is a tragic love story amid the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994 .

action

Bernard Valcourt is a Québec-born journalist and filmmaker. In July 1994 he returned to the Hôtel Des Mille Collines , which was devastated by the genocide in Rwanda from April 1994. In flashbacks , he remembers his time there six months ago and after.

He wanted to shoot a documentary about AIDS in Kigali , the capital of Rwanda . At the hotel he got closer to the attractive dark-skinned waitress Gentille and they began a love affair. Meanwhile, the racist tensions between Hutu and Tutsi increased. They resulted in a mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans against which the United Nations Support Mission for Rwanda was powerless. Bernard wanted to marry Gentille and give her diplomatic protection. But on the run from the hotel they were stopped by a roadblock next to which corpses paved the roadside. Although Gentille is actually a Hutu, she was imprisoned, raped, abused and separated from Bernard by them. He was not physically injured and was later released. He knows nothing of the fate of his lover, she has disappeared.

Months later, after the destruction and the massacres, Bernard can return to the hotel and looks for Gentille. Finally he finds her in the country in her burned-out parents' house. She is physically and mentally marked and wishes for death, whereupon Bernard suffocates her with a pillow with tears in his eyes.

Reviews

  • Reelfilm criticized the lack of chemistry between the two main actors ("almost complete lack of chemistry between Bernard and Gentille") .

Awards

  • Robert Favreau and Gil Courtemanche won a Genie Award in the Best Adapted Screenplay category at the 27th Genie Awards ceremony in 2007. There were also nominations in seven categories.
  • The film received the Prix ​​Jutra six times in 2007 and was nominated in six other categories.

Background information

The budget was about 7 million CAD . The film was shot in Kigali, Rwanda, from May to July 2005. The Hôtel des Mille Collines was also the setting for the film Hotel Rwanda (2004).

The film premiered in Québec on April 3, 2006, and had revenues of just over CAD 1 million in that province.

In Canada, DVDs have been released in French and English.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ reelfilm