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03/29/2006:

"Flashback to terror: Survivors of Rwandan genocide watch screening of Shooting Dogs"

Joseph Nyamiroko never reached the safety of the Amahoro stadium with his family. On 11 April 1994, he witnessed soldiers hacking his wife and son to death with machetes before shooting his brother in the face as they fled towards the sports complex.

Ever since, the 56-year-old shopkeeper has avoided the towering arena. He believes it is where the "ghosts" of his loved ones finally found refuge from Rwanda's genocide.

But on Monday night, almost 12 years to the day after seeing his family butchered on a muddy brick-red road, Mr Nyamiroko finally completed the journey to the stadium.

There he found those ghosts, walking and talking before him on a 20ft-tall cinema screen.

Sat on the terraces with 2,000 others, he saw a version of the events of that day resurrected in the world premiere of Shooting Dogs during a tropical rainstorm. The £3m British film, starring John Hurt, portrays the massacre started at the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO) in Kichukiro, a southern suburb of the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

It was one of the most bestial and troubling killing sprees in the planned campaign of extermination which claimed 800,000 lives in 100 days between April and July 1994.

...Indeed, the makers of Shooting Dogs - financed by the film arm of the BBC, the UK Film Council and a German production company - have been eager to emphasise what they consider to be its key virtue - the fact it was made in Rwanda with Rwandans actors and crew and as much input from Rwandans as possible. By contrast, the Oscar-nominated Hotel Rwanda was made in South Africa.
independent.co.uk

How sick is this.