Outrage in Africa Director of ëRwandaí Hopes Message Will Help Avoid Another Atrocity by Ky N. Nguyen "Can you imagine 15 percent of a nation being killed in 100 days," asked Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life hero portrayed by Don Cheadle in the movie "Hotel Rwanda." Emboldened by government propaganda during the Rwandan civil war in 1994, Hutu mobs used machetes to attack what they called "cockroaches": minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The filmís Irish writer-director Terry George commented, "Itís just a small step from demonizing people to dehumanizing them to calling for their extinction or eradication or arrest or whatever." As a Hutu hotel manager in Kigali, Rusesabagina risked his safety by providing sanctuary to 1,268 refugees. "What kept me going? I myself sometimes wonder. When I was doing that, I never thought about it. I thought I was just a hotel manager who was doing his day-to-day job, his workówithout taking time to set rules, set regulations, set up plans. I had to act as fast as I could to avoid catastrophe and disaster. "This is what I used to tell people," he continued. "Although this is happening, we get to an end. And once we get to an end, weíll have to face history. And the day we f ace history, what are we supposed to say? If, for instance, history visits me today, what can I say? What can I tell this person called history?" Rusesabagina added: "Today, I am a little bit better because at long last the message I have been trying to convey has come through. But before this movie came out, I was bitter. I was angry. I was against almost each and everyone from the international community." (Other countries did little to stop the atrocities in Rwanda while they were happening.) George noted, "One of the mistakes I made, I realized afterward, was not getting some radio coverage of the O.J. [Simpson] trial, which was going on at the time, just to place us in our head where we were at. And when we think we were preoccupied with the O.J. trial as opposed to the Rwanda genocide, itís part of that bit of shame that I want to inject into all of us about what we were doing back then." Nigerian-British actress Sophie Okonedo, who plays Rusesabaginaís wife Tatiana, said, "You hope as a storyteller to tell a story that has a resonance with people. And so that perhaps the next time they pick up a paper or something happens in the news, it resonates with them because weíve humanized it." "I just think that until we get a sense of proportion and fair play and equality about what goes on in Africa, these things are going to continue," George said. "We canít all talk about global economy and global village and then exclude a whole continent from that community. "We made this movie as a piece of entertainment that would enlighten people, anger them, and hopefully give them a feeling of hope at the end of it, but also as a wake up call that we shouldnít let this happen again," the director explained. "And yet here we are in this situation," George said, referring to the current genocide in Sudan, where there is a "slightly slower rate of killing, and yet we canít mobilize troops to go in and stop what is actually not a big armed force, or a massive military operation." The director concluded: "So what we are trying to sayówithout pointing fingers because I donít think thatís a helpful thing at this timeóis, ëCome on, letís not let this happen again. Letís get out and stop what is going on in Darfur and give Africa and human life in Africa the equal balance it deserves with the rest of the world.í "Thatís our message as Paul and I go around the country. The primary purpose of the movie now is to mobilize people on this and hopefully move them to do something. And not to do, as we said in the movie: See it, say itís horrible, and go on eating your dinner." Jean-Pierre Jeunetís ëEngagementí After "AmÈlie," a phenomenon that happens "once in a lifetime," whatís next? French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet keeps much of the same formula while returning to darker material recalling his earlier "Delicatessen" and "City of Lost Children." He and "AmÈlie" co-writer Guillaume Laurant adapt Sebastien Jasprisotís bestseller: "A Very Long Engagement." A French paper glibly dubbed the movie, "AmÈlie Goes to War." AmÈlie" star Audrey Tautou plays Mathildeóa whimsical, determined young woman resembling AmÈlie. After World War I, Mathilde embarks on a quest to find her fiancÈ, who was punished for self-mutilation. He was sentenced to a presumed death by being thrown into the no-manís land between enemy lines. Although the topic of "punishment killings" was long banned in France, the Army cooperated fully with this production. The gregarious Jeunet explained, "It was a very good opportunity to speak about the war without making the film only about the war. Who would like to watch a film with two hours of butchery of blood? The second thing was the opportunity to recreate Paris during the 1920s." Jeunet has an all-French cast except for American Jodie Foster, whoís fluent in French. (She was a French major at Yale.) While dubbing another film in Paris, she contacted Jeunet, who recalled, "We were at the cafÈ of AmÈlie. After the meeting, we were waiting for a taxi outside." Tourists approached the pair with a camera, asking them to move aside so they could photograph the landmark! Jeunet uses 99 percent of the same crew from "AmÈlie" "because I love them and they love me. You donít lose time to explain everything. You know by heart their quality and difficulty. I push them, but they love it. This kind of film is such a good opportunity to make something beautiful. They make other films, but itís only with me that weíre nominated for Oscar." Ironically, "A Very Long Engagement" was ruled by the government as not being French because of financing originating from Warner France, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. Despite using French crew, talent, locations and language, itís ineligible for French subsidies. Jeunet complained humorously, "ëAlexanderí is a French film because itís a French production. It has a right to be French with American actors, in English, shot in Morocco." Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.