Een dolgedraaide republiek (Rwanda 1894-1994)

Kritische geschiedenis van Rwanda sinds de Duitse kolonisatie tot aan de volkerenmoord van 1994.

In 1954, the ethnologist and filmmaker Luc de Heusch shot a film in Rwanda, illustrating the traditional relationship between Tutsi herdsmen and Hutu farmers in this ancient Central African Kingdom, then a Belgian protectorate. Exactly forty years later, more than five hundred thousand Tutsi men, women and children perished in the first genocide in African history. Contrary to what a misinformed public opinion was all to willing to believe, this tragedy was not the ultimate episode in a secular struggle between two hostile “ethnic groups”. This is what Luc de Heusch sets out to demonstrate in a historical film that pieces together the true face of this society, disfigured first by the colonial ideology, then by the republican regime. Hutu and Tustsi make up one nation whose inhabitants speak the same language, come from the same religion, share the same interdictions, and acknowledge the rule of a single sacred king. The film tells the country’s story from the time of the German colonisation, dealing in turn with the Belgian mandate, the drama of independence, the seizure of power by Grégoire Kayibanda and the dictatorship of Juvénal Habyarimana.

1996. vidéo 4/3 Letterbox, kleur en zwart-wit, 75′

Beeld : Luc de Heusch
Chef Montage : Denise Vindevogel
Assistent regisseur : Claire Colart
Voice-over : Jean-François Bastin en Alice Karékézi (fr), John Boyle en Sally Boyle (eng)
Archieven : RTBF – BRTN – Orinfor (Rwanda) – André Cauvin – Luc de Heusch – Gérard Deboe, het Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika in Tervueren 
Productie : Simple production
Coproductie : RTBF – BRTN – Orinfor – La Sept/Arte – Videocam
Partners : RVU Educational Broadcasting – l’Agence de Coopération Culturelle et technique (ACCT)