Here is the intro to the interview:
"The top prize for narrative filmmaking at the 2007 AFI Fest went to Lee Isaac Chung for his first feature, MUNYURANGABO, about two young men, one Hutu and one Tutsi, on a journey through Rwanda’s haunted countryside. Upon earning a BA in Biology at Yale as a pre-med student, Isaac Chung took a chance on his side-passion for cinema and earned an MFA in Film Studies at the University of Utah in 2005. Once Dept. Chair Kevin Hanson pointed him in the direction of the films to see, he approached cinema “monastically,” viewing ten or more films a week and doing nothing but thinking and working on the craft. After his wife began volunteering at YWAM Rwanda as an art therapist for women survivors still traumatized by the genocide, Isaac Chung joined her there, offering film instruction.
Diane Sippl:So how did Munyurangabo get off the ground?
Isaac Chung:I decided that making a film together with Rwandan students would be the best way for them to learn the art. After researching Rwanda and Rwandan cinema, I wanted to treat the film project very seriously. I invited Samuel Anderson to work on the screenplay with me, and he later joined us in Rwanda during the shoot. Jenny Lund, a fellow film student from Utah I really trusted on the set, came earlier on."
Read the rest of the interview at Cinema Without Borders.
And here is Munyurangabo's website.
- Sujewa
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2 comments:
This is, without a doubt, one of the best films I saw all year. It has haunted me since I saw it. Thanks for posting...
Sounds good Tom, looking forward to seeing it (well, one of those both "looking forward to & dreading" situations, due to the subject of the massacre that it no doubt will address - not light stuff).
- Sujewa
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