Another movie about the 1994 Rwanda massacre is in the works, according to a press release I received today. This one will star Quebecois star Roy Dupuis (The Barbarian Invasions, La Femme Nikita, etc.) as Canadian general Roméo Dallaire, and it will be based on Dallaire’s memoir Shake Hands with the Devil, which was already turned into a documentary in 2004. The director will be Ottawa-born Roger Spottiswoode, whose credits include the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and the Arnold Schwarzenegger cloning flick The 6th Day (2000; my review).
This movie is the latest in a recent spate of Rwanda-themed films that includes 2004’s Hotel Rwanda (in which Nick Nolte plays a fictitious Canadian officer named Col. Oliver), 2005’s Sometimes in April and Shooting Dogs, and the upcoming Un dimanche à Kigali (in which Guy Thauvette plays Dallaire himself).
Filming starts in Kigali, Rwanda in mid-June. If I’m not mistaken, that would make this only the second film, after Shooting Dogs, to be shot on location, where the incidents depicted occurred.
UPDATE: Whoops, I forgot that Un dimanche à Kigali was, itself, shot in Kigali, as befits the movie’s title. So that would make Shake Hands with the Devil at least the third film to shoot there.
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