BEHIND THIS CONVENT

Behind this Convent features revealing interviews with survivors of both the modern Rwanda and those who are still trapped in its past. Intercut throughout this film is footage taken from 600 faces and voices, survivor testimonies, murderer testimonies, and the silent witnesses. In this film, Rwandan filmmaker Gilbert Ndahayo faces his own demons and those of his country in an impassioned moment when he faces his father’s killer in the “gacaca” court. A non-chronological time line of Rwanda’s 1994 Tutsi genocide is dissected and includes a review of both survivor and murderer ideologies, and a look into one of the locations where the tragedy hit hardest, behind a convent in Kigali. Behind this Convent is a profoundly intense and emotional journey into Africa’s most intense killing campaign in recorded history, and the filmmaker’s testimony to the power of film and forgiveness.