by SARAH ROWLAND

Genocide: What can be done to stop it? This will be the topic of discussion at the NFB cinema Monday, April 18. The debate kicks off after a special screening of Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, the powerful documentary that follows the emotionally shattered Canadian Lt.-General back to Rwanda for the 10th anniversary of the machete massacre, where Hutu hard-liners set out to annihilate Hutu moderates and Tutsi civilians. Director Peter Raymont will be there to present his award-winning feature, as part of a four-part series offered at the 21st annual Vues D'Afrique.

This year the African and Creole film festival will host more than 100 features from 21 countries, with a special focus on Senegal filmmakers. Opening the 10-day event is Pourquoi?, a Senegalese short by Sokhna Amar that looks at how rape is used as a weapon during wartime; and Massaï, a Kenyan full-length about a group of young inexperienced warriors sent on mission to save their village from a deadly drought.

Of the 50 docs, there are several noteworthy Canadian entries, including Khala Matabane's Story of a Beautiful Country. In this deceptively simple portrait of a post-Apartheid South Africa, Matabane cruises through nine provinces in a mini-bus picking people off the street to talk about the reality of their country. It doesn't take long for his passengers to veer off the broader topic and head straight into some very personal issues. One particular interracial couple starts off all smiles, but a short while later the husband confesses that his wife recently chose to abort their child because her parents disproved of their "circumstances." There's also an unforgettable gun-toting farmer who thinks that Afrikaners are tops because they are the only people decent enough to win a country and then give it back. The whole time you're watching his highly animated, self-congratulatory diatribe, you're thinking "That's mighty white of you, pal."

You can see these and many other engaging films Thursday, April 14 to Sunday, April 24. For more info, visit www.vuesdafrique.org or call 990-3201.

Quiet on the set

As per usual, la Cinémathèque québécoise is showcasing a body of work from a distinctive filmmaker whose films we rarely get to see on the big screen. This month's main attraction is Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang, a writer/director who is not exactly known for his dialogue-heavy scripts. In fact many of the Tsai films that will be screened during the nine-day retrospective (Thursday, April 14 to Saturday, April 23) can go on for 20 minutes before anyone on screen utters a word. But that doesn't make his narrative style any less poignant.

A good example of his silent but deadly approach is the 1994 erotic drama Vive l'amour. Tsai follows two squatters living in a fully furnished deluxe apartment, which has been on the market for weeks. One of the nesters is banging the realtor lady, who has no idea that he is crashing there at night. The other homesteader is a suicidal salesman, in love with his unofficial flatmate. The final two suspense-filled sex scenes more than make up for Tsai's lingering, wordless sequences that tend to require a very long attention span. For more info, visit www.cinematheque.qc.ca.

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