Since its world premiere at Sundance earlier this year, where it won the 2011 Audience Award in the World Cinema Drama category, Alrick Brown’s “Kinyarwanda” has been garnering praise and accolades along the way as it has played the festival circuit. In addition to its prize at Sundance, the film won the Audience Award in the World Cinema section at AFI Fest 2011 earlier this month, and the Grand Prize at the recent Skip City Film Festival in Japan.
On December 2, “Kinyarwanda” will also be the second film released through the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement (AFFRM), an organization founded by Ava DuVernay and the leaders of several of the most prestigious African-American film festivals in the country. “I Will Follow,” the first film released through AFFRM, was written and directed by DuVernay, and premiered in five cities: New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Seattle, eventually expanding its run to include more than 20 markets. “Kinyarwanda” will be released in those initial five markets plus Chicago, Washington DC, and San Francisco.
AFFRM’s mission is to expose quality independent movies from African-American filmmakers to a wider audience, and “Kinyarwanda” should only build on that mantra. Weaving six interconnected stories together against the backdrop of war and genocide in Rwanda, Brown’s feature directorial debut tells the story of a young Tutsi woman and a young Hutu man falling in love amidst chaos, how a soldier struggles to foster a greater good while absent from her family, and how a priest grapples with his faith in the face of unspeakable horror.
While most of the cast is Rwandan, an American, Cassandra Freeman, plays the pivotal role of Lt. Rose, a freedom fighter based on Rose Kabuye. Freeman’s credits include Spike Lee’s “Inside Man” and Chris Rock’s “I Think I Love my Wife.” Not one to be typecast as the girlfriend or the “hot love interest,” Freeman revels in the chance to stretch her creative chops, including three indie films on her recent acting resume.
Film Slate Magazine caught up with Freeman while she took a break from a magazine photo shoot and discussed the making of “Kinyarwanda” and how the movie doesn’t play out like a conventional war story.
Film Slate Magazine: How did you become attached to this project?
Cassandra Freeman: Long story short, I actually went to NYU for grad school, for acting, and Alrick was there for directing, and we tried to collaborate on several past projects, but it never worked out. So I just happened to move back to New York from L.A. when he was finished writing this project, and I read it, and I fell in love with it. But I didn’t think there was a role in it for me, but unbeknownst to me, he went back to Rwanda and told the producer Ishmael Ntihabose, that Cassandra Freeman might be available for Lt. Rose.
And everyone in Rwanda happens to know my work because of ‘Inside Man’ and Chris Rock’s ‘I Think I Love My Wife,’ and literally off the plane people were like (mimicking Rwandan accent), ‘You are Cassandra Freeman.’ It’s very serendipitous how it all worked out.
FSM: And how do you attack a role like this? There is a lot of heavy stuff in this movie and certainly the real-life aspects of it, so how as an actress do you go about that?
CF: Well, this role was loosely based off of a real woman in Rwanda named Rose Kabuye. She’s sort of like the Martin Luther King there, there’s so much information on her. She’s very controversial, also very well loved. I met Tony Blair and he called her “The Rose of Rwanda.” I had a lot of information online to look at and then I actually had a chance to meet her.
But the way I came up with the role was, this character, she was so far away from me, I just found a song that I thought related. And it happened to me randomly, a song from Rihanna and Jay-Z called “We’re Going to Run This Town Tonight” (the song is actually called “Run This Town” –ed.), and when I finally met Rose, she was nothing like me in the movie…She had a sequined top, a blazer, and we were sitting there for dinner talking about our lives her phone rang and that was her ringtone. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, I love that song too,’ and she said (mimicking her accent) ‘I love this song.’ Between the song and just meeting her and reading lots of material that was it. And also she’s not from Rwanda she’s actually Ugandan, so it was easier for me to learn her accent as well.
FSM: Shooting in Rwanda, and certainly making any movie with an indie budget, what were some of the challenges in making this movie?
CF: Some of the challenges were that we were shooting during the rainy season, so we were trying to shoot around the rain schedule. It was also grasshopper season, and when I say grasshopper, I mean a swarm of thousands of grasshoppers that were killing our light left and right. So they had to be sort of judicious and smart about where they put lights. Sometimes they put out almost like a rat trap to capture a bunch of them so we could shoot at the location. And then also, just dealing with the emotional aspect, that 90% of the people in front of and behind the camera were Rwandan. We had to stop shooting sometimes because things got so emotional. And one night someone even had a heart attack because of post-traumatic stress. Between all that, it was a lot to deal with.
FSM: Right, I’m sure these are not easy things to deal with. So what do you do? Do you compartmentalize that? At the end of the day, can you let it go? Or is it always with you when you’re shooting this movie?
CF: On one hand, I think we all had a little bit of culture shock anyway…I think for me, everything was really beautiful, and by having something to focus your energy on really helped, but I think for most of us, it didn’t really hit us, everything that we absorbed, until we got back home.
To be able to do this in only 16 days, it took immense concentration, in the midst of all the obstacles as well. And the truth is, Rwanda today is so beautiful and it’s so friendly and peaceful, you can really attach yourself to what the present peace is now. Because let me tell you something: it doesn’t make sense for us to fall apart if the people who actually suffered aren’t falling apart either. If you were in Rwanda right now you wouldn’t get off the plane and be like, ‘Oh my god, tragedy!’ You’d walk off the plane and be like, ‘This place is gorgeous.’ I mean, Rwanda is known as The Land of 1,000 Hills. It’s like being in Los Angeles except the dirt is red. I think that’s what we attached ourselves to.
FSM: Turning back to the film and its run at the festivals, can you describe that sort of ride? The awards at Sundance, and AFI, it certainly got some great press there. From an actress on the inside, how do you view the ride of this film?
CF: That’s a great question, no one has asked that. I’ve traveled with the film internationally…I just came back from Germany last Monday. Inside the movie what I really see is that people really attach themselves to the story in a way like no other. Because people, whether they’ve lived through war like in Manheim or whether they’re from Ashland, Oregon, people keep saying that they had no idea they had the choice to forgive. Most American movies are about vengeance; we could do a three part sequel about people just trying to get vengeance back. This movie is the complete opposite of that…Forgiveness really is an everyday act but people really find great inspiration in that.
That’s why I think we keep winning the Audience Award. I think it’s a beautifully shot movie, I think it’s a beautifully written movie. But it’s sort of revolutionary to do something so simple like showing a story of forgiveness, and showing how these Rwandan people saved themselves. Not about how the U.N. came in; it’s not about how America came in; it’s really how they saved themselves.
FSM: When did you first become aware of AFFRM? Was that immediate, or did that come down the pike after you made the movie?
CF: I heard about AFFRM when she (Ava DuVernay) did ‘I Will Follow.’ I saw ‘I Will Follow’ just because of the movement that she made that movie into…We have so many great independent artists of all colors, anyway, but it’s real hard to get publicity. And I love that there was a company that’s really trying to champion the underdog. That’s when I first heard about it.
Then when I was at Sundance, I saw her but I never had a chance to really speak to her. And I remember thinking, ‘Well I hope that we’ll be able to meet randomly.’ So when our movie got picked up I was like (making a pleased sigh), ‘Ah!’ And I really think this movie is such an awesome movie. It’s so great that she picked this movie, because I don’t know how often you get to have an independent filmmaker go all the way to Africa and make, not a documentary, but a straight feature film, and get some type of distribution through a company like hers.
FSM: Any final thoughts about the movie, or AFFRM, or the release coming up in December?
CF: I think it’s a movie, even though it sounds like a movie about the genocide, it’s really about love during genocide…and relationships during genocide, and dreams during genocide. That’s really what the movie is about. I love that title ‘Love in the Time of Cholera.’ Maybe this movie should have been like, ‘Love in the Time of Genocide.’ That’s really the feel of the movie. I hope people are audacious enough and really give it a chance and come out. Even if you think you know what the movie is about, 100%, everyone who comes to see it always are like, ‘This is not what I thought it was going to be about. It’s much more.’
Click on the link below to view a clip of “Kinyarwanda”
