Word: rwanda
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Perhaps George’s intent with Hotel Rwanda is to stimulate audiences to turn towards the current genocide in Darfur where the U.S. may end up repeating the mistakes it made in Rwanda. How disappointing, then, that the film’s good intentions ultimately fall victim to its own underwhelming quality...
...Tutsi civilians sought refuge inside the walls of his hotel. As genocidal Hutu extremists massed along the Mille Collines’ perimeter, Rusesabagina called for help. The US and its allies in the UN Security Council shamelessly ignored Rusesabagina’s cry. The top UN peacekeeper in Rwanda at the time, Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, recounts in his memoirs: “the people in the Mille Collines were like live bait being toyed with by a wild animal, at constant risk of being killed and eaten...
...Oceans Eleven fame agreed to play Rusesabagina, and MGM signed on as the distributor. “It was always nerve-racking that the money would fall through,” the director says. But the scent of success should put George’s nerves at ease. Hotel Rwanda garnered a Golden Globe nomination for best drama Monday, and Cheadle grabbed a best actor nomination as well...
...rests on a copy of Time Magazine with the forty-second president plastered on the cover. But we keenly feel his absence. And in a singularly eerie scene, State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelly is heard on TV as she tries to deny that the situation on the ground in Rwanda rises to the level of genocide. Shelly’s words roundly contradict the reality on the screen. George chooses not to show Shelly’s face—in an apparent attempt to accentuate America’s emotional distance from the horrors in the heart of Africa...
...movie will likely score big at the box office, and that might make Hollywood moneymen less dismissive of thoughtful Africa-focused films. But will Hotel Rwanda redirect America’s attention to the humanitarian crises of our day? Rusesabagina thinks so. “Whenever people are informed, that has an impact,” he says. George adds that he “felt good about the notion that we would at least stimulate people to get involved and mobilize...