Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo (Benimana) : La Fabrique 2022 - Les Cinémas du monde

Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo: Benimana

Rwanda
La Fabrique 2022 - Les Cinémas du monde
Film project in development

Each year, the Fabrique des cinemas du monde selects film projects from around the world, during which the directors are invited to the Cannes Film Festival for two weeks. The activities include meetings, professional interviews and master classes, and the finalization of a script or completion of a budget.

Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, Rwandan filmmaker and producer, was among the participants with her film project, Benimana (Children of God)!.

She had this to say about the project: "It's a film that talks about intergenerational trauma and the need to deconstruct prejudices… portraits of women in Rwanda, of women who were victims of the Tutsi genocide, of survivors, of women who are members of the families of the killers. I especially wanted to work on memory: how it is experienced at the individual level." (During an interview with RFI special correspondent, Isabelle Chenu)

"Benimana is a reflection on how political decisions impact us individually and what it costs us to be part of the community," she stated during an interview with Falila Gbadamassi of France Télévisions Rédaction Afrique

Synopsis

The feature film relates the story of Veneranda as she confronts her past when she learns that her daughter, who was conceived as a result of the rape she suffered during the Rwanda genocide, is pregnant by her boyfriend, presumed to be a Hutu, the ethnic group responsible for the genocide. Convinced that her daughter was raped and afraid that her history will repeat itself through her daughter, she decides to end the pregnancy and the relationship.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
BENIMANA is about intergenerational trauma and the need to deconstruct prejudices and resentments. The film’s characters, who are mainly women, go through successive moments of happiness, chaos and darkness in which love and hate, resentment and reconciliation are intertwined.They thus portray my country, Rwanda, in its effort to rebuild itself after the Tutsi genocide of 1994.

Sources:
lescinemasdumonde link
RFI link
Imagesfrancopones link
francetvinfo link