Tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples lead to a civil war, in a country where corruption and bribes

are routine. Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), the manager of Sabena Htel des Mille Collines, is Hutu
but his wife, Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo), is Tutsi. His marriage is a source of friction with Hutu extremists,
most prominently George Rutaganda, a friendly supplier to the hotel who also is the local leader of
Interahamwe, a brutal anti-Tutsi militia.
As the political situation in the country deteriorates, Paul and his family observe neighbors being dragged
from their homes and openly beaten in the streets. Paul curries favor with people of influence, bribing
them with money and alcohol, seeking to maintain sufficient influence to keep his family safe. When civil
war erupts and a Rwandan Army officer threatens Paul and his neighbors, Paul barely negotiates their
safety, and brings everyone to the hotel. More refugees come to the hotel from the overburdened United
Nations camp, the Red Cross, and orphanages. Paul must divert the Hutu soldiers, care for the refugees,
be a source of strength to his family, and maintain the appearance of a functioning high-class hotel, as the
situation becomes more and more violent, with mobs in the streets just outside the gates.
The UN Peacekeeping forces, led by Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte), are unable to take assertive action
against the Interhamwe since they are forbidden to intervene in the genocide. The foreign nationals are
evacuated, but the Rwandans are left behind. When the UN forces attempt to evacuate a group of
refugees, including Paul's family, they are ambushed and must turn back. In a last-ditch effort to save the
refugees, Paul speaks to the Rwandan Army General, Augustin Bizimungu (Fana Mokoena) and when the
bribes no longer work, he blackmails him with threats of being tried as a war criminal. The family and the
hotel refugees finally leave the besieged hotel in a UN convoy, and they travel through retreating masses
of refugees and militia to reach safety behind Tutsi rebel lines.

Why not? Why not? We are halfway there already.

In 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the
Hutu tribe in a massacre that took place while the world looked away. "Hotel Rwanda" is
not the story of that massacre. It is the story of a hotel manager who saved the lives of
1,200 people by being, essentially, a very good hotel manager.
The man is named Paul Rusesabagina, and he is played by Don Cheadle as a man of
quiet, steady competence in a time of chaos. This is not the kind of man the camera
silhouettes against mountaintops, but the kind of man who knows how things work in
the real world, who uses his skills of bribery, flattery, apology and deception to save
these lives who have come into his care.
I have known a few hotel managers fairly well, and I think if I were hiring diplomats,
they would make excellent candidates. They speak several languages. They are discreet.
They know how to function appropriately in different cultures. They know when a bottle
of scotch will repay itself six times over. They know how to handle complaints. And they
know everything that happens under their roof, from the millionaire in the penthouse to
the bellboy who can get you a girl.
Paul is such a hotel manager. He is a Hutu, married to a Tutsi named Tatiana (Sophie
Okonedo). He has been trained in Belgium and runs the four-star Hotel Des Milles
Collines in the capital city of Kigali. He does his job very well. He understands that when
a general's briefcase is taken for safekeeping, it contains bottles of good scotch when it is
returned. He understands that to get the imported beer he needs, a bribe must take
place. He understands that his guests are accustomed to luxury, which must be supplied
even here in a tiny central African nation wedged against Tanzania, Uganda and the
Congo. Do these understandings make him a bad man? Just the opposite. They make
him an expert on situational ethics. The result of all the things he knows is that the hotel
runs well and everyone is happy.
Then the genocide begins, suddenly, but after a long history. Rwanda's troubles began,
as so many African troubles began, when European colonial powers established nations
that ignored traditional tribal boundaries. Enemy tribes were forced into the same land.
For years in Rwanda under the Belgians, the Tutsis ruled and killed not a few Hutu. Now
the Hutus are in control, and armed troops prowl the nation, killing Tutsis.
There is a United Nations "presence" in Rwanda, represented by Col. Oliver (Nick
Nolte). He sees what is happening, informs his superiors, asks for help and
intervention, and is ignored. Paul Rusesabagina informs the corporate headquarters in
Brussels of the growing tragedy, but the hotel in Kigali is not the chain's greatest
concern. Finally it comes down to these two men acting as free-lancers to save more
than a thousand lives they have somehow become responsible for.

When "Hotel Rwanda" premiered at Toronto 2004, some reviews criticized the film for
focusing on Paul and the colonel, and making little effort to "depict" the genocide as a
whole. But director Terry George and writer Keir Pearson have made exactly the
correct decision. A film cannot be about a million murders, but it can be about how a
few people respond. Paul, as it happens, is a real person, and Col. Oliver is based on one,
and "Hotel Rwanda" is about what they really did. The story took shape after Pearson
visited Rwanda and heard of a group of people who were saved from massacre.
Cheadle holds his performance resolutely at the human level. His character intuitively
understands that only by continuing to act as a hotel manager can he achieve anything.
His hotel is hardly functioning, the economy has broken down, the country is ruled by
anarchy, but he puts on his suit and tie every morning and fakes business as usual -even on a day he is so frightened, he cannot tie his tie.
He deals with a murderous Hutu general, for example, not as an enemy or an outlaw,
but as a longtime client who knows that the value of a good cigar cannot be measured in
cash. Paul has trained powerful people in Kigali to consider the Hotel Des Milles
Collines an oasis of sophistication and decorum, and now he pretends that is still the
case. It isn't, but it works as a strategy because it cues a different kind of behavior; a
man who has yesterday directed a mass murder might today want to show that he knows
how to behave appropriately in the hotel lobby.
Nolte's performance is also in a precise key. He came to Rwanda as a peacekeeper, and
now there is no peace to keep. The nations are united in their indifference toward
Rwanda. In real life, Nolte's bad-boy headlines distract from his acting gifts; here his
character is steady, wise, cynical and a master of the possible. He makes a considered
choice in ignoring his orders and doing what he can do, right now, right here, to save
lives.
How the 1,200 people come to be "guests" in the hotel is a chance of war. Some turn left,
some right, some live, some die. Paul is concerned above all with his own family. As a
Hutu, he is safe, but his wife is Tutsi, his children are threatened, and in any event, he is
far beyond thinking in tribal terms. He has spent years storing up goodwill and now he
calls in favors. He moves the bribery up another level. He hides people in his hotel. He
lies. He knows how to use a little blackmail: Sooner or later, he tells a powerful general,
the world will take a reckoning of what happened in Kigali, and if Paul is not alive to
testify for him, who else will be believed?
This all succeeds as riveting drama. "Hotel Rwanda" is not about hotel management, but
about heroism and survival. Rusesabagina rises to the challenge. The film works not
because the screen is filled with meaningless special effects, formless action and vast
digital armies, but because Cheadle, Nolte and the filmmakers are interested in how two
men choose to function in an impossible situation. Because we sympathize with these
men, we are moved by the film.

Deep movie emotions for me usually come not when the characters are sad, but when
they are good.
You will see what I mean.

Overview
The decades following Rwanda's independence from Belgium in 1962 saw growing
ethnic tensions and periodic violent attacks and reprisals between Rwanda's Hutu
majority and its Tutsi minority. Thousands of Tutsis fled into exile in neighboring
countries and in 1990 a failed invasion by a Tutsi rebel exile group sparked a civil war
that officially ended in August 1993.
On April 6, 1994, the Rwandan president, a Hutu, was killed when his plane was shot
down over Kigali airport. Hutu politicians blamed Tutsis for the president's death and
within hours, loosely organized Hutu militia groups known collectively as
the Interhamwe began mobilizing across Rwanda. In a preplanned campaign, these
Hutu gangs killed roughly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus over the course of 100
days. And, in full awareness of the situation, the international community did virtually
nothing to halt the slaughter.
Hotel Rwanda tells the true story of one man's courage in the midst of this genocide.
Paul Rusesabagina, a manager at a Belgian-owned luxury hotel in Kigali, Rwanda's
capital, is as skilled at pleasing the hotel's (mostly white) guests as he is at currying
favor with the Rwandan army officers who frequent the hotel bar and the local
businessmen with whom he deals.
Paul, a Hutu, is married to a Tutsi and his children are considered mixed. When the
mass killings begin, Paul's Tutsi neighbors rush for safety to his house. Reluctantly, Paul
takes them in and bribes a Rwandan army officer to allow him to bring them to the hotel.
This is only the beginning of the flood of refugees to come to the hotel. In total, the
number of Tutsis and moderate Hutus sheltering in the hotel and its grounds would rise
to over 1,000.
As the violence worsens, the UN withdraws most of its peacekeeping force (there to
implement the Arusha Accords that ended the civil war), leaving roughly 300 soldiers
behind. Foreign governments send in troops, but only to evacuate their citizens, many
of whom are guests at the hotel. The head of the UN peacekeeping force, distraught
over the withdrawal of his troops, tells Paul to look at himself from a Western
perspective to try and understand why the international community has abandoned
thembecause they are African.
Paul holds firm, and through his connections, his guile, and his courage, he manages to
save not only himself and his family, but also 1,268 innocent people.

Historical Accuracy

The history of the peoples of Rwanda and its neighboring countries is complex and
disputed, so inevitably this movie contains some simplifications.
For instance, a conversation between a journalist and a Rwandan at the hotel bar gives
the impression that there were no social distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis in
Rwanda before Belgian colonial rule. The reality was not so simple.
Prior to Belgian colonial rule, it seems that were distinctions between Hutu and Tutsi,
but they were primarily economic rather than racial. The Tutsis were the aristocracy and
the Hutu were the common people. It was not impossible to change status, and
"become" a powerful Tutsi (which means "rich in cattle") or an ordinary Hutu. The
Belgians heavily favored the Tutsis and exacerbated and codified the formerly flexible
divide between the two groups. For a good explanation of the genocide and what led up
to it, see the History section of the Human Rights Watch Report, Leave None to Tell the
Story.
Another historical inaccuracy in the film concerns its portrayal of the leader
of the UNAMIR mission. In Hotel Rwanda, he is Colonel Oliver, a fictional
character based on Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire. To see Dallaire's
version of events as well as his struggle and work after the genocide, we
suggest reading Shake Hands with the Devil or watching
the documentary based off the book and his experiences.

Ethical Issues and Discussion Questions

1. At the beginning of the film, Paul places far greater value on protecting his family than
protecting his neighbors. But as the film progresses his sense of obligation to his
neighbors and his countrymen deepens. Indeed, rather than abandon the refugees he is
sheltering, he sends his family to safety while he stays behind.
Is his decision the morally right one? In making decisions, how much weight should one
give to the welfare of one's family compared to the welfare of one's neighbors? How
much weight should governments give to the welfare of foreign peoples compared to
that of their own citizens?
2. The UN Colonel tells reporters that his troops are "peace-keepers," not "peacemakers." By UN mandate, UN troops were permitted to use their weapons only in selfdefense. If the Colonel had disobeyed orders and authorized his troops to fire
on Interhamwe fighters, would he have done the right thing?

3. Do you agree that racism played a role in the international community's failure to act
to stop the genocide, as the UN colonel says? The film makes no mention of other
possible contributing factors, such as the disastrous U.S. humanitarian intervention in
Somalia in 1993, less than a year before, which ended after a U.S. helicopter was shot
down and the bodies of U.S. soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
Does this justify the U.S. and the UN's refusal to intervene?
4. The film shows that there was a close relationship between the French and Hutu
governments, even while the killings were going on. On the tenth anniversary of the
genocide, Rwanda's president accused the French of consciously training and arming
the Hutus, knowing that they would massacre Tutsis. The French deny this, yet it is
indisputable that France was the Rwandan government's number-one supplier of
weapons. Does this fact alone make France more culpable for the genocide than the
rest of the international community? How should responsibility be allocated for what
happened, both inside and outside Rwanda?
How has the international community, in particular Belgium, France, the United States,
and the UN, faced up to the question of responsibility and blame in the years since the
genocide?
5. In 2005, world leaders formally adopted the Responsibility to Protect [R2P]
the duty to intervene in when national governments fail to fulfill their responsibility to
protect their citizens from atrocious crimesand in 2006 the UN Security Council
passed Resolution 1674, which commits the Council to protect civilians during armed
conflicts. Do you agree that under certain circumstances, R2P should override
sovereignty? Can you cite any examples where R2P has been or should be
implemented?

Hotel Rwanda tackles one of the most horrifically ugly events in recent history, when the Hutu
extremists of Rwanda initiated a terrifying campaign of genocide, massacring hundreds of
thousands of minority Tutsis (who had been given power by the departed Belgian colonists),
while the rest of the world looked on and did nothing. Don Cheadle stars as Paul Rusesabagina,
the hotel manager at the fancy Les Milles Collines hotel in Kigali. Paul is a Hutu, and a very
successful businessman who smoothly greases the wheels, making powerful connections in all
strata of Rwandan life. His wife, Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo of Aeon Flux), is a Tutsi. She urges
Paul to use his influence to help local Tutsis, who are being harassed and beaten with
increasing frequency, but Paul will only use the political capital he's built up to help his own
family, if and when they need it. Soon enough, the violence escalates, and the Hutus begin their
genocide of the Tutsis. European guests and staff at the hotel are flown out of the country, and
Paul is left in charge. He finds that his conscience won't allow him to watch as the innocent are
slaughtered, and before long, the hotel has become a well-appointed refugee camp. Paul is
seen as a traitor by some, putting his life in danger, and the predicament of his "guests" grows
more precarious every day, but despite good intentions on the part of a journalist (Joaquin
Phoenix) and a UN peacekeeping colonel (Nick Nolte), the rest of the world is not eager to
intervene and stop the massacre. Hotel Rwanda was directed by Irish filmmaker Terry
George (Some Mother's Son), who co-wrote the script with Keir Pearson. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi