Post date: Jul 27, 2011 1:46:45 PM
Rwanda hosts international film festival highlighting the growth in the central African nation's burgeoning film industry.
Filmmakers and movie enthusiasts gathered this weekend in Rwanda's capital Kigali for the opening of the 7th annual Rwanda film festival.
This year's festival theme is "Africa celebrated at Hillywood", as the Rwandan film industry is known.
The event which runs from July 16-29 brought out some of Rwanda's up-and-coming directors and filmmakers, as well as Hillywood A-listers rubbing shoulders with some of the continent's film makers and members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, organisers of the Oscars.
Rwanda's burgeoning film industry Hillywood also celebrated the official launch of the Kwetu film institute.
The school was set up to develop regional talent, offering classes in acting, script writing, producing and cinamatography.
One of the highlight movies at the opening of the festival was "Na Wewe", meaning "You Two", directed by Belgian Ivan Goldschmidt.
The movie recounts the civil war that took place in Burundi, which borders Rwanda. The film explores the inter ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis that took place in 1993, a year before Rwanda's 1993 genocide.
"This movie shows us the reality of how people killed each other in Burundi and I think that it's a lot more about a moral lesson so that we can all learn to live together," said Gaston Rwaka, a journalist.
With more than 500 people coming to watch the opening ceremony of the festival, Eric Kabera who also founded the festival says the 7th annual festival represents a turning point for Rwanda's growing film industry.
"This year is quite special because it is marking actually the beginning of film school, the Kwetu Film Institute, and this is the special evening because not only have we attracted the crowd within the country and outside but we have actually attracted the crème de la crème, our team from Hollywood who have been here to make sure that our stories are shared with them," he said.
Kabera says his team wants to build a film industry, to empower the youth in the art of film making and encourage them to tell their own stories.
Hillywood has made great strides in the past few years with the successful screening of homegrown movies such as Africa United and Kinyarwanda, both of which prominently featured at US Tribeca Film Festival.
Carine Nshimirirmana, a young Rwandan actress took part in an acting workshop tought by Hollywood actress Alfre Woodward.
"In the past, when we heard that a Rwandese woman was pursuing a career in filmmaking, it used to be frowned upon because we were not sure what she was involved in. But today, what the 7th edition of film festival has shown us, is that things have changed and that the industry is progressing," she said.
"I think my next movie will be better because now I have learnt from the professional people. I learnt how to work with actors as a director. I learnt how to use a camera, including when I am directing my DOP (Director of Photography), I learnt a lot from them,' said Jean Luc Habyarimana, a Rwanda film maker who took part in a lighting workshop.
The team behind the festival also plans film screenings in remote several villages throughout Rwanda, where local films are projected on inflatable screen to audiences, some of whom have never seen a movie before.