MOVIE: "Munyurangabo"

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Well, I cannot speak for you, but I am a pretty intelligent, resourceful, creative person, and I KNOW I could never make a film this poignant in eleven days, with no professional actors, nearly completely improvised, with no money or proficiency in the language in which it was spoken. Technically, I suppose there is a lot that could be better. But I did not come to this film to have Spielberg obfuscate reality with clever tricks bought with corporate dollars to dazzle the dullards. I came here to visit Rwanda, to learn what is happening since the genocide, to meet some people, to hear some stories, to share some porridge. This film let me do that. At least, in Rwanda, when they sling mud, it does some good: not like here in the US, where it is applied so harshly in a continually failing attempt to make ourselves not look so bad by making others look worse. Just because Edison of the USA invented the motion picture camera and whites of European descent decided what the standards are of the motion picture INDUSTRY (not arts), decided how it MUST be used, by everyone, everywhere in the world, does not mean that, in the hands of dedicated, indigenous students the camera cannot be a tool of real change. This may not be film school genius, but it is soul genius. When did we movie watchers forget the value of that? And I am thrilled to see that young men can embrace each other so easily, and are not ashamed to cry.