Imagine the thrill I felt when walking down the hill to the Greater Union cinemas in Russell Street, marvelling at the queues amassing in the street in both directions. The Melbourne International Film Festival has begun!
My first film was My Neighbor, My Killer, a documentary examination of how Rwanda’s Gacaca courts, government-organized open-air community tribunals bringing genocidaires and their victims together, work in practice. Anne Aghion, the filmmaker, is never heard. Instead, the camera follows four years of Gacaca in one remote village, focusing on a handful of women whose children had been ripped away and macheted to death. Not an easy film because so much is left unexplained, it’s nonetheless a rare look at victim and killer. Four stars.