Matière grise

  • 104'
  • Rwanda
  • 2011
Grey Matter is the very first full-length fiction film by a director from Rwanda produced in that country. It provides a glimpse from the inside of the traumas of genocide. This partially autobiographical debut starts as a film-within-the-film in which a young director describes the faltering production of The Cycle of the Cockroach (Tutsis were called cockroaches).
Not without a critical note, this introduction shows that it is basically impossible to make an artistic film in Rwanda. A funding committee only wants to give the director money if he makes films that promote educational government projects such as AIDS prevention.
The filmmaker does pursue his idiosyncratic plan, however. He wants to make an experimental film about a brother and sister who take up arms against the demons of genocide. Wearing a crash helmet, the brother fights alone against the insanity that is nestling in his brain: grey matter that can create, destroy and raze itself.

  • 104'
  • Rwanda
  • 2011
Director
Kivu Ruhorahoza
Countries of production
Rwanda, Australia
Year
2011
Festival Edition
IFFR 2012
Length
104'
Medium
HDcam
International title
Grey Matter
Language
French
Producer
Dominic Allen
Production Company
Camera Club
Sales
Camera Club
Screenplay
Kivu Ruhorahoza
Cinematography
Ari Wegner
Editor
Antonio Rui Ribeiro
Sound Design
Safari R. Eugène
Music
Sophie Nzayisenga
Cast
Ruth Shanel Nirere, Ramadhan Bizimana
Director
Kivu Ruhorahoza
Countries of production
Rwanda, Australia
Year
2011
Festival Edition
IFFR 2012
Length
104'
Medium
HDcam
International title
Grey Matter
Language
French
Producer
Dominic Allen
Production Company
Camera Club
Sales
Camera Club
Screenplay
Kivu Ruhorahoza
Cinematography
Ari Wegner
Editor
Antonio Rui Ribeiro
Sound Design
Safari R. Eugène
Music
Sophie Nzayisenga
Cast
Ruth Shanel Nirere, Ramadhan Bizimana