Sometime in April

"Sometimes in April," a harrowing account of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that the West did not mediate, is in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, one of two films about the atrocity in the 11-day festival. While Terry George's "Hotel Rwanda" focuses on the same setting and subject matter, Raoul Peck shows the trauma of the civil war in a different way. These two films and "Carmen in Khayelitsha" can be seen as the heating up of South African films. "Sometime in April", which depicts the bloody scenes of the massacre with thick colors, is absolutely shocking compared to the screened film "Hotel Rwanda" with the same theme. The film, co-produced by the United States and Rwanda, is the first major film about the genocide of approximately 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus. It was filmed in Rwanda and used a large number of local residents as extras. Raoul Peck, a Haitian-born director and human rights activist, said using Rwandans as extras who still remember the disaster might help foreign audiences better understand their fears. Peck held back tears and said: