TERRY George, the Irish writer-director of Hotel Rwanda, staunchly defends the film's central character, Kigali hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, against what George describes as "a smear campaign" by Rwandan journalists and politicians.
In Washington DC last week, Rwandan president Paul Kagame disputed the film's depiction of Rusesabagina as a hero who saved over 1,200 Tutsi refugees during the 1994 genocide. "It has nothing to do with Rusesabagina," Kagame said. "He just happened to be there accidentally, and he happened to be surviving because he was not in the category of those being hunted. Someone is trying to rewrite the history of Rwanda and we cannot accept it."
Writing in the Washington Post, George said: "When you make a successful film that holds someone up as a hero, they instantly become a target." George notes that when he joined Kagame and his cabinet to watch the film in Kigali last year, Kagame told him that "the film had done much good around the world in exposing the horrors of the genocide".
The problem, George believes, is that Rusesabagina, on his speaking tours in the US and Europe, had criticised Kagame's government, saying that the last election in Rwanda, when Kagame got 90.5 per cent of the vote, was not democratic.
"I do pray that this can be resolved," George says. "In the meantime, the millions of people who saw Hotel Rwanda must know that they were not duped. I understand Paul's desire to foster inclusiveness in Rwanda. I understand President Kagame's legitimate fear that Rwanda has suffered too much, too recently, to allow divisions to be fostered.
"There are many politicians such as President Clinton who could mediate this clash now because Hotel Rwanda 2, whether it is focused on Paul's persecution or on old hatreds reignited, is a sequel I never want to make."
Inconvenient screenings
Although Al Gore lost out in moving from No 2 to the top in the White House, he's this week's fastest mover on the US box-office charts, climbing from 22nd place to ninth with his global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. It is playing on just 77 screens, whereas the other films on the top 10 are showing on 1,000-3,900 screens, but the Gore documentary has by far the highest average takings per screen. It could well prove more profitable than some of the mega-budget summer blockbusters, which have taken precarious slides from their strong opening weekend figures.
Vernon goes large screen
Pawel Pawlikowski, who made Last Resort and My Summer of Love, will direct the film of DBC Pierre's Booker Prize-winning novel, Vernon God Little, in which a 15-year-old Texan becomes the scapegoat for a high school massacre. FilmFour is co-financing the movie, a co-production with Mike White and Jack Black's company, Black & White Productions.
Pawlikowski is now working on The Restraint of Beasts, a dark comedy about two Scottish fence builders accidentally killing people in the English countryside. Loosely based on the novel by Magnus Mills, it features Rhys Ifans, Ben Whishaw and Eddie Marsan.
The jury's in
At a time when the organisers of competitive film festivals appear intent on assembling as eclectic a jury as possible, this year's Raindance festival in London may merit an award for lining up a jury that includes Judi Dench and Lou Reed. Joining them on the panel are ER actress Parminder Nagra, Inside Man cinematographer Matthew Libatique, Touching the Void director Kevin Macdonald, photographer and music video director Anton Corbijn, and drummer Marky Ramone.
Kisses and misses
Despite formidable competition from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr & Mrs Smith, the prize for Best Kiss went to Brokeback Mountain co-stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal at the MTV Movie Awards recorded in Los Angeles last Saturday and broadcast last night.
Gyllenhaal also collected the Best Performance award for the same movie. However, Bradgelina triumphed over the ape and the planes from King Kong to win the prize for Best Fight.
Jennifer Carpenter (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) won Best Frightened Performance over weak competition from Paris Hilton (House of Wax) and Dakota Fanning (screaming her way through War of the Worlds). Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins) was pipped for Best Villain by Hayden Christensen (Revenge of the Sith). Having failed to get any Oscar nominations this year, Wedding Crashers took the top MTV award, Best Movie.
The presenters included Colin Farrell, who reportedly looked bored, ate popcorn off the podium and cursed.
