The tag line for this movie on the London Film Festival site reads: An exquisitely delicate story of a young boy’s search for his father’s killer. Not much there to sell the film that’s for sure but nevertheless I’ve not seen too many African movies so I was keen to check out this Rwandan offering. Before tonight’s screening I did a bit more research on what it was about and found that actually the story was supposedly a different take on the atrocities of the Rwandan genocide.

Two boys, Ngabo and Sangwa, become close friends and set out on a journey – one that involves Ngabo finding taking revenge on the man who killed his father. Along the way they stop at Sangwa’s family home where we discover that Ngabo is of the Hutu – the group responsible for the mass killing of hundreds of Tutsi, the group from which Sangwa descends. This drives a wedge between the two previously inseparable friends.

I’m not sure I enjoyed the film because it moved at a very slow pace and just didn’t engage my attention. The movie was so painfully slow that I’m sure it lulled several of the audience members into a sleeping state – I swear I heard snoring nearby! However, there were some truly beautifully shot scenes and some moments of emotion near the start and at the end with the movie’s redeeming aspect being how truthful and genuine it felt.