Archive of films Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire / Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire

Ten years after the Rwandan genocide, Canadian documentarist Peter Raymont and crew set out with General Dallaire on the trail of the mass murder. Period and present-day footage is narrated by a troubled man - then UN representative - whose guilt stems from his inability to fulfil his peacekeeping mission and stop the killing.


Synopsis

Ten years after the genocide in Rwanda, a film crew headed up by Canadian documentarist Peter Raymont travelled to Africa, to the scenes of the massacre. They accompanied retired General Roméo Dallaire, who ‘failed’ in his mission as head of the United Nations peacekeeping force. Given the lack of assistance, he was absolutely powerless to avert the catastrophe – and the world passively looked on. During 100 days of massacre in 1994, some 800,000 people perished in clashes between two opposing ethnic groups during which extremist Hutus murdered Tutsis. Shaken, Dallaire took on the burden of guilt for the brutal mass murder, losing all inner calm forever (he suffers from insomnia and twice tried to commit suicide). Years later he returns to the places visited by the horror. The film combines archive shots from the massacre with footage of contemporary Rwanda.

About the director

Peter Raymont

Peter Raymont is a Canadian documentarist with more than 100 films to his credit who subscribes to John Grierson’s definition of a documentary as “the creative treatment of actuality.” While in Rwanda shooting the documentary Rwanda: In Search of Hope (1999), he first began thinking about a film on Dallaire, who at the time was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. Raymont’s films bear witness to inhuman conditions and war violence all around the world, including two documentaries on the war in Nicaragua: The World Is Watching (1988) and The World Stopped Watching (2003).


Contacts

Telefilm Canada
360, rue Saint-Jacques, Suite 600, H2Y 1P5, Montreal, Quebec
Canada
Tel: +1 514 283 636 3
Fax: +1 514 283 236 5
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.telefilm.gc.ca

Films Transit International Inc.
252 Gouin Boulevard East, H3L 1A8, Montreal, Quebec
Canada
Tel: +1 514 844 3358
Fax: +1 514 844 7298
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.filmstransit.com

About the film

Color, 35 mm

Section: Focus on Canadian Film: Beginning of the 3rd Millennium
   
Director: Peter Raymont
Screenplay: podle knihy/based on the book by Roméa Dallaira Shake Hands with the Devil
Dir. of Photography: John Westheauser
Music: Mark Korven
Editor: Michele Hozer
Producer: Peter Raymont
Production: White Pine Pictures, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Société Radio-Canada
Contact: Telefilm Canada, Films Transit International Inc.

Guests

Brigitte Hubmann

Film Institution Rep.

Jean Claude Mahé

Film Institution Rep.


YouTube

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