Birds Are Singing in Kigali

In this moving journey through trauma and mourning, the theme of Rwandan genocide resounds in two intimate portraits of women; it is cinema that, reflecting historical reality, touches on the most profound human experiences: the inevitability of death and the need for rebirth.

The cinematography of Krzysztof Ptak (1954-2016), Józefina Gocman, and Wojciech Staron evocatively establish the film’s emotional aura, painting the screen with cool blues and earthy browns. Images of vultures devouring carcasses-life feeding on death-provide the visual refrain in a story that pierces right to the bone.

A Polish ornithologist named Anna (Jowita Budnik), studying birds in Rwanda, manages to escape when the genocide begins. She takes Claudine (Eliane Umuhire), the daughter of a murdered co-worker, with her. The nightmare they experience isolates them from the world and one another, provoking conflicts and shocks. But pain is also the beginning of the long road to life after loss. – Małgorzata Sadowska, New Horizons Film Festival