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2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Chapter 4: ‘Who Filmed This?’—Iseta: Behind the Roadblock (2008)

Author : Piotr Cieplak

Published in: Death, Image, Memory

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on one of the only widely available pieces of footage showing actual genocidal killings in Rwanda and on Iseta: Behind the Roadblock (2008) - a documentary film about the clip, its author and the people whose deaths were recorded. The footage, captured by Nick Hughes, has become the iconic image of the genocide and is often used in films on the topic. The chapter explores the evidential, memorial and representational significance of the clip as well as its arguable centrality to the genocide’s visual archive.

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previous chapter Chapter 3: Images of Before: Personal Archives and the Kigali Genocide Memorial

next chapter Chapter 5: ‘I Remember Them’—Keepers of Memory (2004)

Nick Hughes himself claims that two other recordings (not his) of genocidal deaths exist (Dauge-Roth, 2010: 222). Allan Thompson, who has worked extensively on identifying the people captured in the footage, is inconclusive about the singularity of the clip. He writes that ‘this is one of the only times a killing was caught on video by the media – perhaps the only time’ (2009a: 247). Chaon claims Hughes’s is the only known footage of the killings (2007: 163). Möller (2013: 78) also seems to suggest that other recordings might exist but does not provide details. As mentioned in the introduction, the archive of Rwanda Television is also underexplored and its proper scrutiny could return some interesting results in the future.

Such substitution may well exist in the vast body of documentary films on the genocide. If so, I stand corrected.

Hughes (2007: 232) describes the distance between the French School’s roof and the street as ‘the other side of the valley’.

There is a faint possibility that Hughes is talking about a different part of the footage (not used in Iseta and not widely available) which may show the death of a singular female figure, Tatiane, who is also the subject of the film. However, I believe that this is unlikely as this particular account mentions details (such as the passing of the white pick-up truck, for instance) that suggests that the scene described is that involving Justine Mukangango and Gabriel Kabaga.

An important intervention in the discussion around pellicule maudite is Georges Didi-Huberman’s (2008) book about the emergence of four photographs from Auschwitz.

For a discussion of such texts, related specifically to Rwanda, see Norridge (2011, 2015).

My translation from the French.

Note that Klotz, unlike Hughes, was injured and evacuated.

It is my understanding that Eric Kabera, a Rwandan producer and director, was very much the driving force behind the film and had a very significant input in its direction.

When we find out that Hughes decided to look after Tatiane’s surviving children, it is announced only once and very briefly, as a passing comment between two women. This is also mentioned at the very end of the film, when we see a photograph of the children accompanied by an explanatory intertitle.

A similarly subjective use of the archive is employed in Shake Hands with the Devil, with Dallaire coming through as the ‘owner’ of the memories.

It is not clear whether he has been shown the footage beforehand or whether he is working exclusively from what he can remember.

I believe it is significant that all of the suspects presented in the film had been apprehended on different charges and were already awaiting trial. It results in further questioning of the impact of the clip in the context of the judicial process in Rwanda.

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Title: Chapter 4: ‘Who Filmed This?’—Iseta: Behind the Roadblock (2008)
Author: Piotr Cieplak
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Book: Death, Image, Memory
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57987-4

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-57988-1

Copyright Year: 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57988-1_5