Kinyarwanda
DVD Release Date: May 15, 2012
Theater Release Date: December 2, 2011 in limited theaters
Distributor: AFFRM
Director: Alrick Brown
Screenwriters: Alrick Brown, Ishmael Ntihabose
Producers: Darren Dean, Tommy Oliver, Alrick Brown
Director of photography: Daniel Vecchione
Production designer: Sibomana Omar Mukhtar
Music: John Jennings Boyd
Editor: Tovah Leibowitz
Costume designer: Emmanuel Ngoye
Cast: Kennedy Mpazimpaka, Hassan Kabera, Abdallah Uwimann, Hadidja Zaninka, Marc Gwamaka, Jean Mutsari, Kena Anee Onyenjekwe, Cassandra Freeman
Running Time: 96 minutes
During the Rwandan genocide, when neighbors killed neighbors and friends betrayed friends, some crossed lines of hatred to protect each other.
At the time of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Mufti of Rwanda, the most respected Muslim leader in the country, issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims from participating in the killing of the Tutsi. As the country became a slaughterhouse, mosques became places of refuge where Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis came together to protect each other. KINYARWANDA is based on true accounts from survivors who took refuge at the Grand Mosque of Kigali and the madrassa of Nyanza. It recounts how the Imams opened the doors of the mosques to give refuge to the Tutsi and those Hutu who refused to participate in the killing.
KINYARWANDA interweaves six different tales that together form one grand narrative that provides the most complex and real depiction yet presented of human resilience and life during the genocide. With an amalgamation of characters, we pay homage to many, using the voices of a few.
