When 13-year-old Gilbert Ndahayo saw his father beheaded and his mother, younger sister, and two hundred other villagers thrown into a fiery pit in his backyard and burned alive during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, he could hardly imagine a bright future for himself.

Gilbert was too busy putting the pieces of his life back together, taking care of his four younger siblings, and figuring out what to do with the remains that lay in what was once his home garden.

But today, Ndahayo finds himself smack in the middle of the American film industry. He turned his life story into a short film called "Scars of My Days,” which set him off on an impressive film career that would take him from the hills of Remera to the studios and cinemas of New York.

"I started to search for a way of healing myself and my community,” says Ndahayo.

"This is how I landed in journalism and film-making.”

Ndahayo’s roots

Ndahayo was born to a lawyer and politician father and a teaching mother, who moved the family to Kigali when he was just a young boy.

"I remember when we were coming to Kigali City, I was on top of the pickup that came to collect us,” Ndahayo recalls.

"It was late in the night and I could not feel cold as I was admiring the beauty of the City. In the village, it is completely dark, no light, nothing.”

Ndahayo began as a film training student at the Rwanda Cinema Centre in Kigali, but his real education came from far outside the four walls of the school.

"One of my grandparents was a storyteller in the King’s courtyard. In the evening, I was told stories and legends of my culture and how people used to live,” he narrates.

"I was so fascinated, almost spoiled by all these stories. From them, I learnt many storytelling devices that I used in my films.”

After his first film, Ndahayo was given the "First Time Filmmaker Award” at the Amakula International Film Festival. It was a dream come true for him.

"I was, by 2006, living one of those amazing cinematic moments after Rwanda’s film festival glamour,” he says. With that success, Ndahayo went back to his roots.

"I do not want to make a mistake about how I entered into the cinematic world. Genocide took place in my country land and this has created me who I am now,” he says.

"My film career is part to explore the horizons of storytelling as well as the power of healing that only a filmmaker can discover.”

Instead of holding a grudge towards those who murdered his family – something he says he does not have the courage to do – Ndahayo turned his pain into a passion for film making.

"For me to survive, I started filming, not knowing what my documentary would be, probably a burial video but it did not matter,” he says.

"I needed it for me to live, to honour the dead, to repair what could be especially in me and to keep the last moment with the remains of my parents and those who died with them.”

Fuelling the future

Ndahayo decided to use his past to fuel his future. He began drawing on the death he felt inside of him to create new life through his films.

Still, his future as a filmmaker was anything but certain, thanks in large part to the country he came from – a country where films remained something of a foreign concept for most of its people.

"It is almost impossible to make a film in Rwanda; there is no film school, no funding scheme for art and about a thousand people own a TV and can afford to consume movies,” he says.

After a course offered by the Rwanda Cinema Centre that taught him the basics of filmmaking, Ndahayo "spent sleepless two years learning by myself how to make a film.”

In 2007, Ndahayo was flown to New York for the Tribeca Film Festival, where his first film, "Scars of My Days,” was screened in front of the likes of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and President Paul Kagame.

The film was received with open arms and thunderous applause. At the same time, Ndahayo used the opportunity to speak to the United Nations about the Rwandan Genocide and its lasting effects.

Since that first film, Ndahayo has kept himself busy working on a score of follow-ups. He recently completed a documentary called "Behind this Convent,” which is set to debut at a major International Film Festival later this year.

Gilbert is currently in post-production of a short film called "Dirty Wine,” a story of a trapped young girl that he shot in Uganda in 2006. He is also eyeing to publish his book, "Victory over Vampires.”

Despite his strong ties to his native country, Ndahayo is now based in New York, an opportunity he says he could not pass up.

"I think this is the best way to serve the community, by being places where we can exchange and take part of telling the stories of Rwanda.”

And, although he finds himself longing for home - "I miss everything about Rwanda, my friends, my beautiful nieces, my growing up sisters and my young brother,” he says – he clashes with colleagues who believe that, as a Rwandan he should focus on making films only for Rwandan audiences.

A filmmaker and beyond

"The question here should be: who is a filmmaker?” argues Ndahayo.

"You are a filmmaker, period. It is not a matter of countries or colours or ages. Aren’t we filmmakers of this world, engaged in the same quest of languages and signs to express our values?”

For Ndahayo, it doesn’t matter where a film comes from or how much money is put into it. "Films are always films,” he says.

"Hollywood and Hillywood will live together in any form or fashion.”

Today, however, there is more to Ndahayo’s life than being a filmmaker. As much as his passion for film lives on, Ndahayo has launched a project that, he says, is much nearer and dearer to his heart.

Two years ago, he launched the Ndahayo Foundation, an organization set up to document the legacy of the Rwandan Genocide.

Since then, the foundation has recorded the video testimonies of over three hundred Genocide survivors and other witnesses. Ndahayo calls it one of his "proudest achievements.”

"I would like to see faces and voices that are living to tell a tale of Genocide in order to preserve first hand experiences for education,” he says adding, "…so that the first Genocide on the African continent suffered by Rwanda can never be forgotten.”

Through his organization, Ndahayo is also hoping to raise US $500,000 (Frw270,577,500) in order to build a memorial centre in his parents’ garden; the scene where his life was changed dramatically and forever almost fifteen years ago.

Whether through his films or his foundation, Ndahayo has made it his mission to foster the art of storytelling as a means of preserving the past in order to protect the future.

"If we do not capture the memories of history while people are still alive, the memories will disappear forever and that would be another Genocide,” he says.

"That would be a murder of the survivors as well as the victims.”

Back to my roots

Next year, Ndahayo plans to return to Rwanda to continue pursuing his career as a filmmaker. He has made a splash in the U.S., but now wants to return to his home country, to share his stories with the very people who serve as their inspiration. And, he hopes that others will do the same.

"I urge the emerging filmmakers to sing very powerfully to the spirit of endurance and love that sustains the living,” says Ndahayo.

"Films should haunt the souls and inspire new hope.”

Contact: stefcarmichael@gmail.com