I have been thinking what I would like to pick for my film choice and rather than going for a chickflick or such like, I thought I would pick a film that I have been meaning to watch again for a while, that is not only a great film but also very moving as it is based on a true story.
When I was travelling in 2012 I had the privileged of visiting Rwanda, it was one of my favourite places.Our visit was definitely one of two halves, on one side we went trekking into the mountains to see a family of Mountain Gorillas (truly memorable) and on the other we met local people who were survivors of some of the most horrific violence, visited the genocide memorial and various churches and mass graves of the people killed. I made a point of visiting the Mille Colleen Hotel (that Hotel Rwanda is based on) in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, as I had watched the film before with my parents. The last time I actually watched the film it was projected onto the wall of a hostel come convent that we were staying in in Ruhengeri in Rwanda. If anyone is interested about my experience I have put a link to my blog post that I wrote whilst I was there. (apologies for the bad spelling and grammar, I reread it and there are a few mistakes!)
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lucyreeve/1/1342678419/tpod.html
The one thing that stayed with me about the people in Rwanda was how especially lovely and friendly they were. They were happy to tell their stories and didn't want to forget what happened. They felt it was important to remember so that something so horrific would never happen again. It still horrifies me thinking that something like this happened in my lifetime and that we live in a world where people would brutally murder other people. This all happened in 1994 and over 2 million people were killed, whilst the western world turned away and were reluctant to help (probably as the country didn't have anything that would benefit them, like oil!).
I hope that you enjoy the film, it is obviously a bit of a tear jerker due to the topic, but I think it is an important story that needs to be told and a great film!
