If you asked people around the world what defines their 1990s, you’d hear a mix of nostalgia and milestones. For Rwandans, however, the decade is overshadowed by a singular, haunting reality—hell. In one of history’s most brutal massacres in 1994, the Rwandan genocide claimed 800,000 lives in just about 100 days. The conflict began on April 7th, following the shooting down of the plane carrying the country’s president amid simmering ethnic tension between the minority Tutsi and the majority Hutu. It lasted three months, ending on July 19th when a new regime captured power. Hotel Rwanda—much like Schindler’s List is to the Holocaust—explored the devastation of the conflict as well as the hopeful human spirit through a powerful redemptive arc. In Hotel Rwanda, Don Cheadle‘s Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu hotel manager (there are complexities about his heritage and involvement), saves hundreds of refugees, many of them Tutsi, who seek asylum at the hotel. Shooting Dogs revisits the agonizing tale through the perspective of two humanistic foreigners, a priest and a teacher, who have lived among the locals and experienced the mayhem firsthand.
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