Everyone here, they are very happy.

---

A few days later I’m on the back of a moto, cutting my way across town. Hillywood is off and running, and this afternoon I’ll be joining the festival as they take their portable movie magic to a small town in the north. The sky is overcast, a great gray parasol stretched over Kigali. The rain arrives in hard, cold drops, coming in at sharp angles. We scoot cautiously toward Gacuriro. On the slick road ahead of us a pick-up stops short; a moto following close behind swerves, skids and slides across the tarmac. The driver and his passenger - each with a leg pinned beneath the bike - struggle on the side of the road. We hop off our moto to help. They’d been delivering milk and the cartons were scattered by the fall; there’s milk everywhere. We help the men to their feet and they dust themselves off, shaking their heads, clucking their tongues, gathering cartons into the crooks of their arms. A small crowd gathers to help them. We get back onto our moto and putter ever more cautiously through the thickening rain.

By the time we reach the Cinema Centre the day looks grim. Storm clouds brood above, and a few technicians crowd into the back of a minivan, looking anxiously toward the sky. But this is the rainy season, after all, and there are few doubts that the weather will improve; some guys even point out that in Rwamagana, fifty kilometers to the northeast, it might not be raining at all.

It’s still early, and we wait in the lobby while a few last-minute preparations are made. Three other wzungu arrive: two journalists and a photographer from Amsterdam, soggy and blonde and rubbing the warmth into their ruddy cheeks. We’re also joined by a tall, gregarious Kenyan named Charles, organizer of his own country’s film festival - a modest event in its third year running. We talk about the post-election fall-out in Kenya, the bitter legacy of tribalism, the challenges facing the country as it tries to rebuild. Branches thrash the windowpanes, and an assistant in scuffed heels tells us the car is waiting. We pile into the back of a minivan, along with three local journalists and a pair of radio DJs. Outside the rain is letting up, a few fat, hard drops pounding the windshield as we race from the city.

Soon we’re in the lush rolling hills on Kigali’s outskirts. Big Tony, one of the capital’s top radio personalities, swivels his massive head in the front seat to talk to us about the festival. He tells us what a great opportunity it is for his country, for the villagers living far from Kigali, with its one modest theater broadcasting dated hits from Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood.

“For some of these people,” he says, gesturing to the farmers trudging by on the side of the road, “it is the first time to see a movie.”

Of course, that’s not entirely accurate. Village theaters, typically housed in a small concrete or mud-brick shop, with a solitary old Panasonic playing ‘80s action flicks, are common across East Africa. Among young boys in these parts, Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme - long since relegated to the pop-cultural dustbin in the West - are practically national icons. Karate kicks and chops slash through the air; imaginary guns pop-pop; little bodies flail and dramatically flop to the ground. If Jackie Chan were to find his grinning mug on the 1,000-franc note some day, few would argue that the honor was undeserved.

That the festival’s movies are made in Kinyarwanda, though, that they’re filmed in local villages with a scruffy, self-conscious cast of extras, offers no small thrills for the crowds. In America, where our physical universe is used to faithful reproduction on the big screen, there’s nothing novel about blurring the line between the lives we lead and the way those lives play out on film; in the case of reality TV, we giddily approve as that line is erased altogether. But what a shock it is for a Rwandan villager to see the fertile hills of Gisenyi province, the mud huts tucked between the palms and banana plants; to see the husky, colorfully swaddled woman roasting cassava; to see the schoolkids in their bright uniforms, to see the policeman and the village drunk; to see the dramas of daily life projecting from the back of the Hillywood van and splashed across a massive screen. And as the evening program unfolds, with one low-rent film following on the heels of the last, the audience approaches a hysteric state.

“It is very funny,” says a boy beside me, “because when we see the television, it is only in French and English. Everyone here, they are very happy.”

There’s a slapdash quality to most of the films. Lines are delivered flatly, or haltingly, or with barely suppressed chuckles, and no one seems to know just what to do with their bodies when the camera trains their way. The lighting is harsh, the sound quality poor; most of the movies are shot on VHS, giving them the sloppy, patched-together feel of a home video. Yet despite their shortcomings - or perhaps because of them - they offer a revealing portrait of Rwanda today. Recurring themes - domestic violence, STDs, the ever-present specter of the genocide - wind their way through each narrative. The films are purposeful, almost pedagogical, in their morals. Life is hard; danger lurks on all sides. You sense a strong empathic bond between the characters on the screen and the spectators in the crowd. When a prisoner in the film Better In Than Out looks forward to life in the outside world, it’s hard to deny his modest hopes - “I will sell a cow…buy some land…marry…buy a mobile phone” - are shared by most of the audience.

I’ve attracted an audience of my own during the screening - mostly small boys in ragged sweatshirts and oversized ski parkas, scrutinizing my every move. Whatever dramas might play out on the Hillywood screen, it’s clear they can’t match the thrills of a white man’s presence. At any moment, after all, and wholly unprovoked, I might suddenly cough or sneeze; I might scratch the tip of my nose; I might scribble something in my notebook to the delight and awe of all.

A boy named Augustin approaches and makes some small talk; perhaps sensing the sanctity of the occasion, he decides to linger nearby, so as not to drift out of earshot lest the spectacular unfold. We watch the movies together, the boys casting sidelong glances my way to gauge my reactions. I play up my laughter, shake my head sympathetically, cluck my tongue. Now and then I pepper the boys with softball questions - “What is your name?”; “How many years do you have?” - giving them a chance to show off their English skills. Augustin proves particularly eager: even as he stumbles over his words, or furrows his brow in deep concentration, he presses on with questions about America and New York. Some day, he says, he would like to visit me there; America, when he says it, is a word full of luster, a bright shiny keepsake that, I suspect, he keeps close to his chest at night, whispering his prayers into the dark.

If America and Europe are worlds of promise for young Rwandans, it’s not just because they offer the prospects of well-paying jobs and a better life. Unburdened by this country’s brutal past, the West offers the sort of emotional tabula rasa that no Rwandan can ever find at home. It’s a fact underscored by the night’s final film, We Are All Rwandans, a powerful dramatization of an attack by Hutu militiamen on a boarding school three years after the genocide was officially over. The gunmen had stormed the school during evening study hall and ordered the students to separate along ethnic lines. But the students were defiant, proudly proclaiming they were neither Hutu nor Tutsi: “We are all Rwandans!” The militiamen opened fire; while fleeing, they tossed grenades into the classrooms, killing six and leaving dozens more injured.

The movie is graphic, and each gunshot produces gasps and cries from the crowd. There’s a stunned silence as the credits roll, the villagers marching solemnly through the darkness toward their homes. A young boy beside me covers his face, his shoulders heaving. Though too young to have witnessed the genocide himself, he’s distraught at the events that played out onscreen. I cradle him against my side, and he reaches up to wipe his tears with a strap from my backpack. Augustin hugs him close to his parka, bending to whisper reassurances in his ear. A few other boys come near and pat his head.

“He is afraid to walk home alone,” says Augustin, stroking the boy’s wet cheeks. “I will walk with him.” He shakes my hand again, touching a hand to his elbow, in the Rwandan manner. I scribble down my phone number and email address, and we make promises to keep in touch.

“If you have a job for me, or some correspondence,” he says, taking the boy’s tiny hand in his own, “I will hear from you.”

---

Comments

[JonathanCampion]

Thanks again.
Another great diary, thank you. You have such a gift for describing people so vividly with very few words.

[PostcardJunkie]

Thanks for the kind words!
I'm not sure I agree with the "very few words" part, but I appreciate your encouragement all the same. It's good to be back!