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RWANDA’ MAMA
In Rwanda' Mama, half-Rwandan/half-Italian filmmaker, Marilena Delli joins her physically-disabled mother (who lost her entire family and was orphaned as child in the 1959 genocide) as she returns to her country for the first time in over thirty years and reunites with her best friend who she had long believed was killed during the 1994 massacres.
Born into the royal court, Marilena's mother was left with nothing at age 7 after witnessing her family's rape and slaughter. Following her marrying an Italian ex-priest in 1978, she moved to Italy and was forced to battle poverty and racism on another continent where she did not even know the language.
Her two daughters, who's lives had been spent in northern Italy where they were discriminated against for being "black", in Rwanda face the shocking disappointment that in their mother's country they do not belong either and are, instead, considered "white". Sparks fly between the mother and sisters as they visit different regions and try to make sense of the complex web of racial-contradictions.
The story unfolds quadra-lingually (Kinyarwanda, Italian, French, English) with English subtitles and voiceovers, and a powerful musical soundtrack of indie and classic Rwandan artists, that have almost never been heard before outside their own country.
Rwanda Mama is an intimate portrait of the ways that national and global politics can have impact on individual lives, as well as a window into the daily complexities of a post-genocidal country (often cited as one of “the 10 poorest in the world”) struggling to be reborn.