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By Joanne Hilty Special to the Rappahannock News “Hotel Rwanda” is one of the year’s most moving and powerful films. Based on a true stoiy, the film chronicles a devastating event in recent world history — the 1994 Rwandan genocide. A long-simmering conflict between the ruling Hutu tribe and Tutsi rebels turned into civil war and 1 million Rwandans, many of them women and children, were murdered in the space of 100 days. Starring Oscar nominee Don Cheadle in the performance of his career, the Rappahannock Association for the Arts and Community is showing this film at The Theatre in Washington, VA, Friday, April 15, 8:00 p.m. Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina is the black assistant manager in a Belgian-owned luxury hotel in Kigali, Rwanda, Africa. (Rusesabagina, who is now living in Belgium with his family, was a consultant for the film.) It is 1994 and civil war has broken out outside the walls of the four-star lodging and the powerful Hutu tribe is bent on getting revenge on the previously powerful Tutsis. Paul, a Hutu but non-political, only wants to save his wife Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo) and their children but it soon becomes obvious that his sizable extended family is in danger too. Due to his influential position at the four-star hotel that r is regarded as a safe haven amid the chaos of Rwanda, Paul has amassed a cache of favors from influential people both in and out of the country. The white, foreign workers and man< agers are abandoning Rwanda into the hands of the mur' derous Hutu with only a token United Nations force remaining, led by Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte), but hamstrung by a . no-fire zone. * The abandonment of Rwanda by the western powers *■ leaves the door open for rampant abuse and murder by the ! Hutus and more and more refugees flock to Paul’s hotel, ; where he is placed in charge by the Belgian owners after the white manager of the hotel flees. Paul utilizes the support ‘ and political clout of the company’s chairman (played by * Jean Reno) to protect his steadily growing number of wards. • But, for every good deed and success, the hotel manager must face increasing obstacles that could mean the whole■ sale slaughter of his refugee residents. He calls in his fast• diminishing markers to feed and protect the still-growing numbers. Cheadle, as the lead in a significant and important film,
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