Ben'Imana © Mostafa El Kashef
Ben’Imana, as seen by Marie Clementine Dusabejambo
After directing four short films, the Rwandan director Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo wraps her first feature film, Ben’imana, which is in the running for Un Certain Regard Prize. This drama is an empirical reflection of the Tutsi genocide committed by the Hutus, from April to July 1994 in Rwanda. People’s courts, set up in 2012, have been trying to come to terms with this trauma. By establishing a dialogue between the victims and perpetrators’ families, the protagonist, Vénéranda, delves into a past that is still raw. With Ben’imana, Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo includes Rwanda into the Official Selection for the first time.
“Through image and words, I commit to film the story’s silences to reclaim their voices.”
– Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo
The architecture of the “Balm”
Ben’Imana began as a profound questioning of memory: is it possible start over in oblivion, and conversely, does the lack of forgetting condemn us to inertia? After the Apocalypse, it is not only a question of survival, but knowing where to direct our attention. I wanted to see whether there was a “Balm” in the Land of a Thousand Hills, a remedy for invisible wounds. By placing humans at the center of every frame, this film explores the point of friction between intimate trauma and political necessity to reinvent yourself. It’s a project that refuses the grandiose, to concentrate on the dignity of reconstruction.
Companiable silence
The set of Ben’Imana was not always a regular work place, but a contemplative and demanding space. We progressed into a mood of “creative resistance,” buoyed by a close-knit team that believed in the importance and the beauty of the tale.
I have fond memories of these divine moments where technology fades away completely and the physicality of the set disappears to be replaced with the raw reality of the characters. It was a setting infused with our historical baggage, where emotions became so overwhelming that words failed, we filmed the impossibility of verbal communication by having bodies and expressions take over.
Faces like landscapes
The casting is the beating heart of Ben’Imana. I wanted faces that could silently speak and would be able to tell a story before any word had been uttered. Most of these women are not professional actresses, except of course Isabelle KABANO, who has already portrayed leading roles in international movies such as “Petit Pays (Small Country: An African Childhood).” Moreover, the women whose story this is, were present on-set and were an integral part of the film. Their participation blurs the border between memory and cinema. The actresses accepted complete exposure, embracing this story with a rare faith and humility. On-set they didn’t only play a role; they surrendered their bodies in search of universal dignity.
Teaching and discovery: the geography of a secret.
Making Ben’Imana taught me humility while facing time and space. I discovered that cinema can be a true healing process, acting as a cure both for the recipients of the work as well as the creators. I learned to let the film breathe, not to force the story, but to listen to what the rolling Rwandan scenery wanted us to uncover. The topography serves as a metaphor for memory… Behind every hill hides another one, intertwining endlessly toward the horizon. I chose to shoot this landscape as a character in its own right. It is not a setting, it is a silent witness to the confrontations, the keeper of secrets and holder of a tragic story that continues beating underground.
An intergenerational love letter
Ben’Imana is a layered tapestry of stories, one nested in the other. It is above all a love letter from one generation to the next.
The years necessary to making this film have taught me that every generation must conduct its own battles, and that it is essential to do this with honor and dignity. Therefore, we must understand our own historical context, both in time and space, and respect the efforts of those that came before us, without judging them in light of our times/our current reality.
I would like the audience to remember that beauty can conquer even the densest darkness, and if when leaving the theatre, the viewers feel an intimate closeness with these characters and wonder about our collective ability to show compassion, the film will have achieved its objective. Ben’Imana does not want to draw conclusions, but instead create a space for dialogue and tenderness.
Influences: a collective memory
My perspective has been cultivated by Isaac Lee Chung’s films and Halle Gerima’s work, the latter also having been my mentor. I identify with their exploration of the outline and the passing of time. I am sensitive to these works that do not pretend to give definitive answers, but that commit to asking essential questions about our human condition.
My cinema is rooted in a Rwandan reality, but it is nurtured by a greater source, by lineage itself. Like Haile Gerima emphasizes, every storyteller speaks for a community. Every sound, every word is a collective resonance carrying the genes and memories of our families, our neighbors, etc.
I am convinced that this inherited memory forms the basis of our identity. It dictates the way I express myself as a human being and guides my camera. For me, filming is drawing from this memory content, translating into images what it means to belong to a communal history.
