EVERY Tuesday, the Goethe-Institute shows free movies to the public with the purpose of promoting the culture of cinema and entertainment.On Tuesday, it wasn’t about culture and entertainment only when the Institute showed the movie, ‘My Neighbor, my Killer’, an 80 minute movie from video clips compiled since 2002.A few minutes to 7pm, most of the parking space had been taken, forcing people to park their cars on streets around the cinema hall. With such a crowd, the huge cinema hall also filled to capacity.The movie ‘My Neighbor, my Killer’ was made in Rwanda and it examines the emotional and judicial convulsions of post-Genocide Rwanda through the oral testimonies of a handful of traumatized survivorsDirected by Anne Aghion, this restrained and ethically nuanced documentary investigates the effectiveness of the open-air tribunals known as Gacaca.

Instituted nationally in 2002 by the Rwandan government, these community courts try people accused of taking part in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. In most cases the guilty are returned to the communities they helped decimate. "Yes, it’s true: our killers have returned. What can we do?” remarks one widow in the movie whose recollections of macheted infants and bludgeoned family members and peers.In no mood for the group hug of reconciliation, these women disdain categorization as symbols of suffering: tough, wise and sorrow-forged, they address the camera with forthrightness as admirable as the director’s willingness to absorb their occasional contempt. Unfolding amid the undulating beauty of the Rwandan countryside, the tribunals are volleys of accusation, denial and unconvincing remorse. Here, actors and actions may blur, but emotions remain crystal clear.You’ll ask yourself a question; will reconciliation really take its way as that was the purpose of the release of these prisoners? Well I could answer that for you in three words. Buy the movie!! It was an evening well spent for those who attended.Movie:   My neighbor my killerDuration: 80 minDirector: Anne AghionMovie in Kinyarwanda with English subtitles.