'Ben'Imana' Review: Dusabejambo's Camera d'Or-Winner Examines Forgiveness After Genocide
By
Jessica Kiang
5d ago· 6 min readenReview
85/100
Golden Brown
Bagelometer↗
Crisp on the outside, thoughtful on the inside. A keeper.
Score85TypereviewSentimentneutral
Summary
A review of Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo's debut film "Ben'Imana," which won the Camera d'Or at Cannes. The film explores the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, focusing on the tension between spoken forgiveness and deeply held trauma. The review examines how the film lives in the difficult space between what people say and what they truly feel, intensified by the omnipresence and omni-absence of the genocide's legacy.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledThe first words spoken in Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo's 'Ben'Imana,' are of forgiveness. But the body does not forget and the speaker's defiant stare and tight, unyielding stance suggest she is trying, not wholly successfully, to discipline herself into feeling the words as well as just saying them.
Dusejambo's fraught yet forthright first film... lives in the difficult space where what we say roils against what, in our heart of hearts, we really feel, a ferment here agonizingly intensified by the omnipresence — and omni-absence
The film asks if it is possible to forgive the unforgivable.
Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo's Rwandan Camera d'Or-winner "Ben'Imana" asks if it is possible to forgive the unforgivable.
