******Best Short Documentary Film award winner at the London City Film Festival 2021..... is ..........drum roll.........................Rwanda: Beyond the Swamp.

I worked on the documentary film Rwanda: Beyond the Swamp in collaboration with The VII Foundation which has been announced as the Best Short Documentary Award winner at the London City Film Festival 2021. Rwanda: Beyond the Swamp is an accomplishment for those who made the film. However, far more importantly, it is an achievement in understanding the power of forgiveness in the wake of catastrophic genocide. It is also a confirmation of the Rwandan peoples' indomitable spirit in the pursuance of peace.

Context

In April 1994, my Colleague and friend Stephen Dupont and I illegally crossed the border into Rwanda to document and report on the atrocities that shocked the world. We witnessed the carnage of tens of thousands; in the streets, in fields, swamps, and in churches. What we saw and documented inexplicably changed our lives forever. Twenty-five years later, I returned to Rwanda wondering, 'can a country find light out of such pervasive darkness'? What I did find is a nation regenerated under the authoritarian leadership of Paul Kagame. 'Beyond the Swamp' tells Rwanda's remarkable success story and looks at the difficult choices to be made between memory and forgetting.

DIRECTOR Fiona Turner

SCREENWRITER Fiona Turner, Rachel Clark

PRODUCER Fiona Turner, Peter Klein

PRODUCER | RWANDA Gadi Habumugisha

CAST | NARRATOR | PHOTOJOURNALIST Jack Picone

CINEMATOGRAPHERS Christopher Morris, Maciek Nabrdalik

You can watch Rwanda: Beyond the Swamp here: