Shake Hands with the Devil reawakens past in Rwanda

It was an emotional journey back in time for a small group of Rwandans who attended a private screening of the Canadianfeature film Shake Hands with the Devil Thursday night in Kigali.

Producer Laszlo Barna took a draft of the film about General Roméo Dallaire's UN mission to Rwanda during the 1994 genocide totheRwandan capitalfor a screening byPresident Paul Kagame and his cabinet.

Thefilm left some members of the audience too moved to speak, Barna told CBC News.

"People came up to me after and said 'yes, I can't talk to you right now; it's too strong, too powerful,'" he said.

Barna called the screening,using a makeshift screen because Rwanda has no cinemas, a nerve-racking affair for the producers.

Kagame, who was a military commander during the genocide, appeared to like the film. "He complimented the film and he said he liked it very much, and that's a big thing because we portrayed him in the film," Barna said.

"He told me he was very pleased with the way the film dealt with the United Nations and the world community and the lack of attention that community paid to the genocide here in Rwanda."

From 800,000 to one million people died in the Rwandan slaughter, while the international community refused to give Dallaire and his small force of UN troops the power to stop it.

Members of the audience praised the film as "authentic."Unlike Hotel Rwanda, which is set during the same period, it was shot in Rwanda and people in the background are speaking the local dialects.

Barna said it cost more to fly crew and equipment to Rwanda to film, rather than shooting in South Africa.

"We wanted the locations to be the locations where things had actually happened because we wanted to both honour the Rwandans and Roméo Dallaire," he said.

He recalled shooting one scene in whichDallaire and his convoy have to move bodies off the road as they pass a village.

"We're doing the shot, the bodies are real people, the actors, the Rwandan actors who are playing the Canadian troops … big guys —six foot three, six four —they were sobbing," he said.

"People in the village watching this shooting — we had a psychologist with us — two people had to be hauled off because they broke down. We were making a movie; they were revisiting what had happened to them."

Barna says Dallaire has already seen several screenings of the movie, and has urged director Roger Spottiswoodeto focus more on the story of the genocide because his main interest is seeing that such slaughter is never repeated.

"He's not particularly interested in the saga of this commander who had a rough time. When he saw the film, his first response is it's too much about me — not enough about the genocide," Barna said.

"What weighs down his soul is that he believes he failed, he should have been able to stop it,"Barna added.

Ordinary Rwandans still are angry at the UN for failing to act, but they seem to have respect for Dallaire, he said.

Dallaire's book, Shake Hands with the Devil,was made into a documentary with the same title. The film version stars Roy Dupuis as the Canadian general, now a senator.

It will screen in September at the Toronto International Film Festival and open the Atlantic Film Festival.

Barna said he and fellow producer Michael Donovan plan to take the film back to Rwanda, possibly this fall, to show to ordinary Rwandans in a sports stadium — the same stadium where thousands of Rwandans sought shelter with UN troops as the genocide raged in the streets.