{Olive Mukabalisa is a survivor of genocide living in America, in the state of Missouri. She recently graduated from Webster University with Masters degree in International Relations. In 2013, Olive Mukabalisa produced her debut feature film, making her the first Rwandan film producer for long-films. Olive was only six-years old during the genocide against the Tutsis in 1994 when she witnessed her entire family being killed. Here is her story.
{{What have you produced?}}
“The Rwandan Night” is the first film I executive produced and released in October 2013. The documentary is directed by a fellow Rwandan filmmaker Gilbert Ndahayo and has a 95 minutes running time. It was shot in Rwanda (April – December 2006), United States (November 2011) and Switzerland (April 2013). The film is a powerful testament to the pain that is the legacy of the genocide against the Tutsis that claimed the lives of more than one million lives within a hundred days in the spring of 1994.
{{How was your experience working on “The Rwandan Night”, your first documentary feature?}}
It was very emotional and tense. “The Rwandan Night” is a story based on Fidele Sakindi, a genocide survivor. Sakindi was four years old in 1959 and survived everything that has happened to Tutsis people in Rwanda. He lost his entire family.
I wanted to get through the understanding of it all. My parents and my elder siblings were killed in the genocide. I was only six years old. You can imagine how much history that man “Sakindi” has. Sakindi’s story pretty much taught me a lot to what has happened prior to 1994.
{{So, what prompted you to work on the film?}}
I have watched many films on genocide. One of the films I watched was “Rwanda: Beyond The Deadly Pit” which addresses the post genocide situation in Rwanda. It is also another harrowing film from the same director. I met Gilbert Ndahayo on Facebook and when I heard he was working on the second film, I wanted to work with him. Sakindi’s testimony covers all the stages that led to genocide against the Tutsis.
{{What have you learnt in film and what was your contribution?}}
To the film, “The Rwandan Night”? I have had the first hand testimony which has helped me understand events like “Secyugu” (The Lizard), “Muyaga” (The Storm) and all “Acts of genocide” perpetrated in 1959 and eventually culminated into the 1994’s final solution.
But my job as a producer is to protect the director. We are both survivors of genocide. Gilbert Ndahayo edits his own film. By editing here, I mean, we watch and listen to testimonies of survivors then come with the look (sequence) of the film. Sometimes, Gilbert is filming. Then, he films himself. In the end, he is sandwiched into the films he creates.
{{How does a producer protect a film director?}}
Gilbert had to go over and over the stories of killings of his parents, family members and friends. I am talking about months, seeing and listening to everything. I just couldn’t help but protecting him from going crazy. My feeling is, if he did not make the film, he would have died or something.
{{
How?}}
Honestly, killed by a film he would want to make. The film was frustrating him because as a filmmaker who is also a survivor of genocide, and watching events how they culminating into the complete wipe out of his families and friends and all one millions Tutsi people; things were not working on his psychology side.
Sometimes, Gilbert got angry when things didn’t turn out the right way. And I was always yelled at. It was too much work, under tight deadline and no money to help us. I did help to meet some of the deadline, so by doing that, his work became a little be easier.
{{What did you do apart from protecting the director being crazy?}}
Gilbert Ndahayo hates dealing with paperwork. I did secure the copyrights. I also worked with him on the English translation so that we could at least have a representation of the testimonies to reach our American audience. Additionally, I secured about 30% of money that partly funded the film. “The Rwandan Night” budget is estimated at $75,000.
{{Where did you get the money?}}
“The Rwandan Night” received a production grant from FRIENDS OF RWANDA, through Her Excellency Mathilde Mukantabana, the Rwandan Ambassador to the US in Washington. The money secured pretty much was spent on set in the state of California. Gilbert filmed in Silicon Valley and Sacramento. These are the only interviews we used in the film. We interviewed genocide scholars at California State University, Sacramento with a gathering of roughly 180 scholars around the world. Gilbert also filmed a debate on forgiveness around his previous film “Rwanda: Beyond The Deadly Pit” organized by the American Leadership Forum.
Gilbert used his own money to film himself in Switzerland, and that is the opening clip of the film. He is talking about his process as a filmmaker confronting the memories of genocide. “The Rwandan Night” did not receive any post-production fund. But, we were recipient of the 2013 Berlinale Talent Campus Doc Station, which allowed Gilbert to travel to Germany and learn more about crafting the documentary.
All these three years of making the film, we were in discussion with friendly genocide scholars, filmmakers and philosophers. These people contributed intellectually to the making of the film the way it is.
{{Some scholars are writing that “The Rwandan Night” is contradictory to Gilbert’s debut autobiography. What do you say to that?}}
Under what conditions are they basing their arguments? Do they want a debate? You see we make our personal story as Rwandans and what they want is debating. They have been debating even prior to genocide.
In my opinion, there is no contradiction, “Rwanda Beyond the Deadly Pit” brings in the theme of forgiveness and “The Rwandan Night” walks us into the chronology of genocide. The tough question to attend to is when genocide survivors question where God and the so-called United Nations were at the time of genocide. This question is portrayed in both films. But what about the reality of going back into the memory and making sense of it?
In the first decade after 1994, Rwanda was recovering, reconstructing itself and survivors had little faith in humanity. Gilbert’s film recollects their testimony of what they have seen, heard and done in 1994. Again, we both see the unfolding last stage of genocide, which is denial.
Gilbert and I shared the same feeling that if “The Rwandan Night” is not made, we would talk about the genocide and people would start to think that those things are just our nightmares and recommend some help or something like that. The genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda is not a product of our imagination. For his mother’s side, Gilbert lost fifty-two members in Bugesera and until now he is still counting those he had lost from his father side because none comes from one parent. At the count of two hundred, Gilbert told me that he had to stop. His heart was like a deserted land, and he could see dead bodies everywhere. In some moments, Gilbert wished he died with them. Fortunately, he survived. And he is telling the story. If you want to make a movie about life itself, there should be no fears of judgment. At least, that is what I have learnt from working with him.
{{What is the good news now that the film is completed? }}
We are in discussion to have the film translated into French, Italian and Spanish in order to access the European market. “The Rwandan Night” won the 2013 Silicon Valley African Film Festival Best Documentary Award and plans are on the way to premiere the film in twenty countries around the world in 2014.
On hall of fame, “The Rwandan Night” will always be known as the first Rwandan award-winning documentary that uses long monologue and famous songs of commemoration. Credits go to neo-traditionalist Mighty Popo in “Nibarize” (Tell Me), poetess Suzanne Nyiranyamibwa in “Ibuka” (Remember) and lyricist Aimable Twahirwa in “Humura” (Be Comfortable). We shot on Sony HD and Canon 6D. In post-production, we had a lot of work in transforming an engaging material in one format but at the same time contemplating the beauty of the image.
I am excited that “The Rwandan Night” is being released on DVD this Saturday, February 1, 2014. In America and Europe, schools can purchase a DVD/NTSC rated 16 for education purposes. We want to make Rwanda proud. February 1st is a Heroes Day in Rwanda. Gilbert is very picky on this day because by putting the film out there at that specific date, we are honoring our people who were killed during the genocide but most importantly the brave ones, the RPF soldiers, who stopped the genocide.
In April 2014, “The Rwandan Night” will be shown in two cities of Italy for the 20th commemoration events. In Italy, the official organizers of the 2014 commemoration events and are going to present the film in two cities. The evening screening of “The Rwandan Night” will be reiterated by the personal survival testimony of the filmmaker ever made public. Gilbert will talk about his journey back to Rwanda to attempt to rebury all the fifty-two of his immediate family members who were murdered in the 1994 genocide before confronting and giving forgiveness to the murderer of his father. It is the first time the world is going to hear the suffering and sorrow of Gilbert as he seek to reconstruct on camera the events that made him an orphan of genocide.
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