As We Forgive DVD Review

The Hutis of Rwanda (land-owners) were considered superiors to the Tutsis (animal and grain owners), as we learn in MPower’s October DVD release of As We Forgive, directed by Laura Waters Hinson and narrated by Mia Farrow. Then came the genocide, and this particularly concerns me – that during the Million Killed Over 100 Days, April 7 to July 15th, 1994, the government had indoctrinated the Tutsis into hating the Huti and threatened the Tutsis with being beaten to death if they themselves didn’t kill them! Heretofore the Hutis and Tutsis had been friends and neighbors, sharing many daily activities together.

It’s understandible that this film received many awards, including the Amnesty Internatonal Film Award, because it deals with such a horribly complicated and sensitive issue – the Hutis need forgiveness for their personal spiritualism and transformation, and for the country to move forward, but why should the Tutsis forgive the slaughter of their families?

The lives of two widows are dealt with in the main body of the film, Rosaria and Chantale, while Special Features offers the story of Immaculee Ilibagiza, who hid with seven other women in a bathroom for a week, entirely immovable and silent, so that she wouldn’t be killed. As to Rosaria and Chantale, the men (Saveri and John) who killed one’s husband and the other’s sister and children came and talked with them and asked for forgiveness (the women initially dreaded them because they were men who had killed before). In Rosaria’s case, she was also helped with the processing of her sorghum, her entire year’s income, and because she had been macheted and stabbed herself (but survived, while all the others around her died) her arms don’t work correctly anymore.

I highly recommend this film (which tells us about the Living Bricks Program where prisoners build homes for the victims). Once incident even tells us about how the Church itself bulldozed hundreds of people when there was no room for them!

Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, states, “As We Forgive is a film that should be shown to everyone. It will change the way people think about Rwanda — and themselves.”

Grade: A

Director: Laura Waters Hinson
Starring: Rosaria, Saveri, John, and Immaculee

DVD Review by Christina of Movie Room Reviews