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It was only after Histoire de Tresses (about braids) had won the Best Short Film Award and been singled out for special mention by the SIGNIS jury in Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF)'s Festival of the Dhow Countries on July 5 that it dawned on the world that Rwandans are making films. Till then, perhaps the only film familiar to the world had been 100 Days of Eric Kabera that captures the 1994 human pogrom that engulfed Rwanda claiming almost a million lives.

Many films are being made in Rwanda ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Genocide, a part of history that is better forgotten than remembered, in 2004. Besides numerous documentaries, Kabera-whose Rwanda Cinema Centre (RCC) is playing a central role in the emerging Rwandan audiovisual sector-says six feature film projects are lined up for shooting in Rwanda but that the local people are unlikely to reap from them as they are not skilled. The projects are from the United States, Canada, Europe and Africa.

Kabera's own production company, LinkMedia, is making The Keepers of Memory, a memorial documentary made from the perspective of survivors of the 1994 human pogrom. The film, being shot now, focuses on massacre sites (schools and churches in which fleeing people sought refuge but ended up being massacred by conniving authorities). Also making a film is 29-year-old Jacqueline Kalimunda, director and co-producer of the award-winning 22-minute Histoire de Tresses. Like Kabera, she is also making a historical film. "I am making a historical documentary on Rwanda," she says. "This is a personal subject that questions what and why I act the way I do."

The documentary is based on her knowledge derived from her experience as an archivist on She says that all her films will have her own personal perspective and interpretation. Kabera says he embarked on The keepers of memory on a shoe-string budget of less than US$1000 not knowing where funding would come from but that the Dutch Embassy in Kigali has since pledged to provide more than 50 per cent of the slightly more than US$50000 production budget. Depending on the availability of funds, Kabera says the film could be on 35mm film, DVD or VHS video.

"I now know this film will be made," he says, adding that like in the case of 100 Days, crew will come from Kenya but that LinkMedia and not Vivid Features of Nairobi, will produce the film. The documentary, whose shooting commenced at the end of July, goes into post-production in September so as to be ready for release in 2004. The film-alongside 100 Days and other films by Kabera-- will then tour major world cities and festivals. But Kabera does not think The Keepers of Memory could open up fresh wounds in Rwanda, a country that is still trying to come to terms with itself after the 1994 massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. "You can't talk about the Rwandan Genocide without showing what happened. We are not pointing accusation fingers at any one but just showing what happened: How the Bill Clinton Administration in the United States and the Francois Mitterand regime in France failed to prevent the killings and how the Belgians abandoned students in a technical school where they were massacred. It is the testimony of the people rather than what I say that makes up this film," Kabera says. "I won't edit out the people's testimonies."

Kabera contends it is difficult to talk about reconciliation or opening up wounds while there is no trauma-healing structure that would help people remember and come to terms with their tragic sad past . "I hope this film will help people to come to terms with their traumatising past as it is only after this that we could talk about peace and reconciliation," says Kabera, whose RCC is to help develop filmmaking in the land of a thousand hills. Having been involved in the documentation of Rwandan history and that of Uganda, Burundi, Congo-Kinshasa on film with Western media organizations like the BBC and CNN, Kabera laments that the documentaries have been consumed elsewhere and that the time has come for the region to gain from its own history. "RCC will help sensitise policymakers on the importance of filmmaking and of their responsibility to supporting it," says Kabera, a member of the nascent East African Filmmakers Forum that seeks to boost the audiovisual profile of the eastern African region.

My point is… Abdulkadir Ahmed Said of Somalia appears to be saying as Kabera--in front of him-turns to look at him

The Forum brings together filmmakers from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Uganda. Like Kabera, the Paris-based Kalimunda is a leading voice in the East African Filmmakers Forum. Her film won one of the six Golden Dhows at ZIFF "for a highly innovative treatment of the theme of exile memory and individual creativity, and for its excellent photography and overall control of technique and style." She is helping develop the audiovisual sector in the East African region "to avoid having to change my career when I return home from Europe. I feel we must put our house in order and help develop local human, cultural and technical potential to enable the growth of film industry here," she says.

"I am sad this region does not have enough cinema theatres while not much filmmaking is going on." The audiovisual production profile of East Africa is the lowest in Africa. It was with the objective of boosting this profile that some filmmakers from Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania conceived the East African Filmmakers Forum idea in early 2003 while attending the 18th Pan African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO). They held their first formal meeting in Zanzibar on June 30.

They discussed regional cooperation and co-production arrangements and formally established a regional network which they followed up with a forum for filmmakers and producers that tackled strategies for producing for film and television. Kalimunda, who coordinated the forums, has been in the filmmaking sector for six years where she has performed various roles "to understand post-production work. " It was while here that she "wrote a couple of scripts" and directed Histoire de Tresses on 35mm format.

The short revolves around Dorylia, a hair stylist who braids hair all day long in a small Parisian flat she shares with her young daughter. Looking for someone to braid her hair one night, Saihan meets Dorylia and their lives are no longer the same again. Kalimunda says she makes films to preserve her identity. "As a black woman living and working in France, I ask myself who I am and want to identify with what all black people have in common," she says. "Braiding is the common cultural aesthetical beauty identity that all black people share. This can be seen not only in the Nigerian Ifo civilisation dating to 5000 BC but also among modern African women in Nairobi, Zanzibar and other African cities." Braiding is the subject of Histoire de Tresses on whose script she embarked in October 2001.

With filming over in March 2002, Kalimunda film started taking it to festival six months later. It has won a number of awards among which are Best Short Film Award (Milan), The People's Prize (Cannes), and Best Short Film Award (Zanzibar). It is now headed to Venice and Toronto. Kalimunda, who attended the French School in Nairobi and speaks Kinyarwanda, French, English and Kiswahili, says she is "not keen on reflecting total reality [in her films] but my emotions, feelings, thoughts, and impressions." She however says she plans to "make a thriller about a person investigating the killing of a popular musician. I want to do a variety of films and not just about the same subjects."

Kalimunda, who discloses that she lives entirely from film as an editor, filmmaker, and continuity girl, says she has already recouped her investment from Histoire de Tresses. But is she satisfied with the way her first film has turned out? "I see many things I would like to change about this film. I will certainly use this knowledge in my future productions. I will for example work more with theatre actors. I will also improve my editing and directing." She says had Histoire de Tresses taken two to three years to make, it would have been done better.

Filmmaking blossoms in the land of a thousand hills