REACTIONS FROM THE PANELLISTS

Below are comments on SHOOTING DOGS from the panel members at The Doughty Street Chambers screening last Tuesday at the Everyman Cinema, Hampstead. Click on the picture below to read a report of the event published in The Guardian.

Geoffrey Robertson QC (leading Human Rights Lawyer):

'An enormously powerful and authentic film.'


Oona King MP (Founder of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention):
'I think it is a fantastic achievement that SHOOTING DOGS has been made. Everyone watching this film will be moved by it and I hope will then look into doing something about these international failures. The important message that runs through the film is ‘What can I do within my sphere of influence to make a difference?’, no matter how small that sphere may be.'


Claver Gatete (The Rwandan Ambassador to the UK):

'I want to thank the filmmakers because they have made a real contribution to Rwanda and the Rwandese…it is an important story for the outside world to know. For us, we have lived this situation…it is so difficult to really tell what happened…but here, they have really done their best. It has explained the failure of the United Nations, it has explained the sacrifices, but also the realities of how people are dying…there were, and are, people really in this situation. World headquarters are still struggling to define what genocide is. This film has tried to tell the whole story of the genocide in Rwanda, in the setting of Rwanda. The film is authentic, shot in Rwanda and with a lot of local participation…this makes it real. The Rwandese, the government officials and also President Kagame, who saw the film last week, believe that this was one of the best films to present the reality. It is the same language, the same people…it best shows how Rwanda was left on its own to deal with its own problems.'


Steven Crawshaw (UK Director of Human Rights Watch) :

'The film makes the issue incredibly clear that Rwanda was a massive international failure, a political failure and a media failure. The film clearly follows the old phrase that ‘all evil needs to triumph is for good man to stand by and do nothing’, and this was very much the case with Rwanda.'


Guy Vassell-Adams (Barrister at The Doughty Street Chambers & Author of the OXFAM report on the Rwandan Genocide) :

'It is a powerful and moving film…it conveyed very well the appalling moral dilemmas that foreigners in Rwanda found themselves in…it is a very powerful indictment of the failure of the UN to respond to genocide…it conveyed this very well. It was a wonderful thing that the film really involved the Rwandan people in the making of it. It is important for people that survived the genocide to know that their story is being told and is heard all over the world. A film like this plays a very important role in that , and I’m sure would be very much welcomed…'

Guardian Article

Guardian Article

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