Pan-African Rwanda Genocide Drama ‘Bisesero: A Daughter’s Story’ Sets Cast With Tracy Kababiito, Wale Ojo & Isabelle Kabano – AFM
30.10.2023 - 18:19
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Ugandan actress Tracy Kababiito, British-Nigerian actor Wale Ojo and Rwandan actress Isabelle Kabano are set to co-star in groundbreaking, pan-African Rwanda genocide drama Bisesero: A Daughter’s Story.
The production is being billed as the first major feature about the tragic events in Rwanda in 1994 to be told exclusively about and by Africans.
Between 500,000 to 800,000 people belonging to the Tutsi minority ethnic group as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa were killed by armed Hutu militias over the course of 100 days between April 7 and July 15, 1994.
Nigerian director Ema Edosio-Deelen will direct from a script which she is co-writing with award-winning Rwandan director and screenwriter Joël Karekezi.
Bisesero: A Daughter’s Story will recount the little-known true story of the Bisesero Resistance, in which tens of thousands of Tutsi led by an elder called Aminadabu Birara (played by Ojo), bravely fought off Hutu attackers.
Kababiito will play Birara’s daughter Epiphanie who joins her father in the fight against the better-armed forces trying to exterminate them.
Around 50,000 Tutsis sought refuge on Muyira Hill in the region of Bisesero, where Birara assumed command of the community. With incredible courage and ingenuity, they held off heavily armed attackers using only sticks and stones.
Edosio-Deelen’s credits include Netflix-acquired 2018 comedy Kasala!, about a teenager who goes on a joyride in his uncle’s car and crashes it, and 2022 drama Otiti, about a seamstress who seeks out the ailing father who abandoned her as a child.
Karekezi made waves in 2018 with drama The Mercy Of The Jungle, about two young soldiers who accidently stray into the hostile Congolese jungle. The drama won the Golden