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Sometimes in April

2005 television film directed by Raoul Peck

Sometimes in April is a 2005 HBO film about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. When Hutu nationalists raised arms against their Tutsi countrymen in Rwanda in April 1994, the violent uprising marked the beginning of one of the darkest times in African history, which resulted in the deaths of almost 800,000 people.

Written and directed by Raoul Peck.

Augustin Muganza

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  • Yes, it is April again... Every year in April the raining season starts. And every year, every day in April... The haunting emptiness descends over our hearts. Every year in April, I remember how quickly life ends. Every year, I remember how lucky I should feel to be alive. Every year in April... I remember.

Dialogue

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Jeanne: It's happening, isn't it? I should never have listened to you! We should have left a long time ago for Kenya or for Senegal, I don't know, but...!
Augustin: I'm in the military. This is our home.
Jeanne: Yes, but tell me: how can I call this home when I'm living in constant fear, Augustin? I already lost most of my family in '92. There's only us now.
Augustin: I can't just get up and run! Abandon everything? What?
Jeanne: We should have brought Anne-Marie back sooner!
Augustin: She's safer in the countryside than in Kigali. Come on!
Jeanne: Come on, wake up!... Nobody is safe in this country! Have you seen the Hutu Ten Commandments? Somebody put it on my desk today at the hospital! They even underlined number seven: "The Rwandese Armed Forces shall be exclusively Hutu; no member of the military shall marry a Tutsi."
Augustin: Jeanne...
Jeanne: Now I'm talking about our children's lives. If anything happens, they will let us all die.
Marcus: Mom, why do they call us cockroaches?
Jeanne: Because they don't know any better, sweetheart.
Marcus: So when I grow up, my I.D. card will say "Hutu"?
Augustin: Yes. But one day, I hope that it will just say "Rwandan".
Priest: [Entering the office as Martine shepherds the girls out] Martine, a word.
Martine: I'm sorry Father, we have a school full of terrified girls.
Priest: Martine, we are in a very difficult position, but we must do our duty. We cannot harbor rebels. We must hand them over.
Martine: Father, these are not rebels! These are girls, girls that you've promised to raise as your own daughters! And now you would turn them out?
Priest: What can I do, my child? We cannot protect all of them! I do not have the power to change the situation! We must pray.
Martine: Girls, they're going to ask you for your identification cards. They want all Tutsis to come out. They want to separate us. I can't do this.
Isa: I'll go, mistress.
Anne-Marie: If Isa goes, I'll go!
Anne-Marie's Friend #1: I'll go.
Anne-Marie's Friend #2: I'll go.
Anne-Marie's Friend #3: I'll go.
Anne-Marie: We're sisters! We're staying together!
Victorine: We're staying together!
Martine: Do you understand the choices that you're making? Do you understand?
Martine: Please, think of them as your own daughters.
RAF Soldier #1: My daughter is not a cockroach!
Prudence Bushnell: [on the phone] No, you do not need a cease-fire to stop this hate-radio broadcast! Monsieur Bagasora, if you do not stop the killing there will be consequences.
Colonel Bagosora: Really? You will send the marines? We have no oil here, no dams, we have nothing you need in Rwanda; why would you come?
Prudence Bushnell: If you do not stop the killings, I promise you that you will be held personally responsible.
Colonel Bagosora: I will see what we can do.
Journalist: These rebels, are they Tutu or Hutsi?
Prudence Bushnell: Hutu and Tutsi!
Journalist: Which ones are the good guys?
Valentine: I knew that he was a leader of the municipality. I felt that he could have protected us, but he did nothing.
Judge Arusha: Did this man ever participate in the rapes?
Valentine: I never saw him rape anybody... but he didn't protect us. He would tell the Interahamwe: Don't ever ask me again how a Tutsi woman tastes! He was encouraging his players. He was a coach encouraging his players. I heard him say, and these were his exact words, "Tomorrow they will be killed."
Judge Arusha: [after Valentine finishes her testimony] May I ask, why did you make what must have been a difficult decision to come to Arusha to testify in this tribunal?
Valentine: I saw that this man did and I felt responsible to testify about this man's betrayal of the people who I entrusted to him. [Looking at defendant] When a man leads assassins, he is also an assassin.
Lionel Quaid: Prudence, our mission was not to intervene while the system functioned perfectly. A few years down the road, the President will ask for forgiveness and make the promise of "never again", but in terms of national interest we did everything right.
Prudence Bushnell: We were loyal to a policy that allowed hundreds of thousands of people to be killed! As far as moral imperative, we did not do the right thing.
Lionel Quaid: We're bureaucrats, not the political leadership.
Prudence Bushnell: Is it because they're African?
Lionel Quaid: Don't do that, Pru. It was Rwandans killing Rwandans.

Cast

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