Festival Films A-Z

Shake Hands with the Devil - The Journey of Roméo Dallaire

Production

White Pine Pictures
822 Richmond Street West, Suite 301
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6J 1C9

Tel.: +416 703 5580
Fax: +416 703 1691
E-Mail:
info@whitepinepictures.com
Internet:
www.whitepinepictures.com

Camera

John Westheuser

Cut

Michèle Hozer

Worldsales

Films Transit
252 Gouin Boulevard East
H3L 1A8 Montreal
Kanada
Tel.:+1 51 48 44 33 58
Fax: +1 51 48 44 72 98
Internet:
www.filmstransit.com

CDN 2004, Regie: Peter Raymont, OmeU, 91 min.

Synopsis

Shake Hands with the Devil  - The Journey of Roméo DallaireIn 100 days - between April 6 and July 16, 1994 - an estimated 800,000 men, women and children were brutally killed in the 'obscure' African country of Rwanda. The victims - many horrifically hacked to death with machetes - were Tutsi, and moderate Hutus who supported them.
One Canadian man was tasked by the United Nations with ensuring that peace was maintained in Rwanda - Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire. But, unsupported by the U.N. headquarters and Security Council, far away in New York, Dallaire and his handful of soldiers were incapable of stopping the genocide.
After ten years of mental torture, reliving the horrors daily and more than once attempting suicide, Roméo Dallaire poured out his soul in an extraordinary book. Shake Hands With The Devil is a cri de coeur. The General pulls no punches in his condemnation of top UN officials, expedient Belgian policy makers and senior members of the Clinton administration who chose to do nothing, as Dallaire pleaded for reinforcements and revised the rules of engagement.
Dallaire is convinced that, with a few thousand more troops and a mandate to act pre-emptively, he could have stopped the killings. His impotence, at a time of extreme crisis, still preys heavily on his conscience.
Peter Raymont followed Dallaire on his first return trip to Rwanda, in April 2004 - the 10th anniversary of the genocide.

"This film documents that extraordinary emotional journey - back to the killing fields, back to confront the devil, back to break bread with Rwandans who, like Dallaire, had managed to survive the carnage. Our documentary weaves together this return journey with a chronicle of the genocide itself. Back home in Toronto, we augmented this material with several interviews: Dallaire's two Military Assistants in Rwanda, Brent Beardsley and Phil Lancaster; writer Gerald Caplan; UN Special Envoy, Stephen Lewis; CBC's Michael Enright, Elizabeth Dallaire; and, finally an exhausting four hour debrief with General Dallaire himself. I found myself having to confront the nature of evil. What is it in human nature that drives people to pick up a machete, go next door, and hack their neighbour to death? What other force of evil turns otherwise decent men and women at the United Nations or in the White House into passive bystanders as 800,000 innocent men women and children are slaughtered? Despite their denials, these people knew what was happening in Rwanda. Almost daily, General Dallaire sent urgent faxes and made desperate phone calls, pleading for reinforcements that never came and an expanded mandate that was never given." Peter Raymont

Biography

The World Is Watching (1988), The New Ice Age (1998), Arctic Dreamer: The Lonely Quest of Vilhjalmur Stefansson (2003), The World Stopped Watching (2004), Bhopal: The Search for Justice (2004), Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire (2004)

Filmography

The World Is Watching (1988), The New Ice Age (1998), Arctic Dreamer: The Lonely Quest of Vilhjalmur Stefansson (2003), The World Stopped Watching (2004), Bhopal: The Search for Justice (2004), Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire (2004)

Dates

3604.10.200721:30Kommkino