Who's in It: John Hurt, Hugh Dancy, Claire-Hope Ashitey
The Basics: A minimally fictionalized true story about the 1994 destruction of 2,500 Tutsi and Tusti-friendly Hutus who sought safety at the Ecole Technique Officelle in Kigali, Rwanda. They were safe for a while, as long as U.N. peace monitors stuck around. But when the situation got too hot, they left, leaving behind the nonwhite refugees who were, in turn, all slaughtered by machete-mad Tutsis. And, obviously, it's as many light years away from director Michael Caton-Jones' other recent movie, Basic Instinct 2, as a film can get.
What's the Deal? You have to admire movies like this for existing — 13 years after the Rwandan genocide — because at the time, in the eyes of the U.S. news media, it was as though it didn't exist. And yes, it'll put you through the wringer; it's moving and wrenching, and there's barely a happy ending. But the stories — even ones like this that are more about the non-Rwandan Europeans than anything else — need to be documented.
One Good Reason to Forgive It for Being All About the White People: David Belton, who co-wrote the script, was a BBC news cameraman who was at the ETC during the siege and evacuated along with the U.N. forces. So it's the story from his outsider perspective.
Why You Should Stay Until the End Credits: It was shot on location in Kigali at the ETC, the actual spot where the attack took place. But if you watch the closing credits, you'll see people of who worked on the film as extras or as crew members who were either there or who had lost people (some of them the lone survivors in their families) in the genocide.
AKA: Shooting Dogs. I guess that was the title in other countries so when you go online to look it up, that's what name it's under.