A film by Atiq Rahimi "There is no better lycée than Our Lady of the Nile. Nor is there any higher. Twenty-five hundred meters, the white teachers proudly proclaim. “Two thousand four hundred ninety-three meters,” points out Sister Lydwine, our geography teacher. “We’re so close to heaven,” whispers Mother Superior, clasping her hands together." Excerpt from Scholastique Mukasonga "Our Lady of the Nile" OUR LADY OF THE NILE A film by Atiq Rahimi 2019 - France, Belgium, Rwanda - 93 mn - Color - French with some Kinyarwanda SCREENINGS SCHEDULE @ TIFF INTERNATIONAL SALES Nicolas Eschbach ([email protected]) Florencia Gil ([email protected]) PRESS & INDUSTRY Simon Gabriele ([email protected]) SAT 7, 11:45 AM @ Scotiabank 6 Clément Chautant ([email protected]) FRI 13, 12:30 PM @ Scotiabank 8 INTERNATIONAL PRESS PUBLIC Touchwood PR THU 5, 6:45 PM @ TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema 1 Andrea Grau FRI 6, 12:15 PM @ Jackman Hall [email protected] SAT 14, 8:30 PM @ Scotiabank 8 +1 (416) 347 6749 SYNOPSIS Rwanda, 1973. Young girls are sent to Our Lady of the Nile, a prestigious Catholic boarding school perched on a hill, where they are taught to become the Rwandan elite. With graduation on the horizon, they share the same dormitory, the same dreams and the same teenage concerns. But throughout the land as well as within the school, deep-seated antagonism is rumbling, about to change these young girls’ lives – and the entire country – forever. ATIQ RAHIMI Atiq Rahimi is a novelist and filmmaker. His first feature, EARTH AND ASHES, co-authored with Iranian filmmaker Kambuzia Partovi, was presented in the “Un Certain Regard” section at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded the Prix du Regard vers l’Avenir. SYNGUÉ SABOUR: THE PATIENCE STONE, his first novel written directly in French, won the Prix Goncourt on November 10, 2008. In 2011, he adapted it into a screenplay with French author and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. The movie, which he also directed, world-premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to enjoy widespread public acclaim when it was released on February 20, 2013. Notably, it showcased actress Golshifteh Farahani who received a César nomination for her performance. OUR LADY OF THE NILE is Atiq Rahimi’s third feature film. AN INTERVIEW WITH ATIQ RAHIMI Atiq Rahimi, your latest film is an adaptation based on Scholastique Mukasonga’s novel, Our Lady of the Nile (Renaudot Prize 2012). This is your first time working from someone else’s writing… Correct. My first two fiction feature films, Earth and Ashes and The Patience Stone were inspired by my own novels. With Our Lady of the Nile, the experience was quite peculiar given it was an autofiction and that the story took place in Rwanda, a country I had never been to. When the producer Marie Legrand offered me the film adaptation, I was hesitant. She liked the way I had depicted the female characters in The Patience Stone and she thought I was “the ideal person”. I couldn’t be sure before visiting the country myself. I had to feel the nation’s soul before I could sign on. Before visiting Rwanda for the first a mirror, invites humanity to reflect an incredible revelation for me and Is it possible the various constraints time, what knowledge did you have upon itself, to feel its wounds and convinced me to embark on this (either cultural or regarding the of the country? to re-encounter itself both in its beautiful cinematic adventure. historical period…) may have Like most people, my knowledge horrors and its delights. paradoxically allowed for broader was limited to the 1994 genocide. A Did you read Our Lady of the Nile freedom of action? tragedy which, in my mind, merged This film was the perfect when it was first released, in 2012? Even when it comes to Afghanistan, inevitably with the fratricide war opportunity, then… Of course. Scholastique and I met in which is mon own country of in my own homeland, Afghanistan, Before leaving, I read a great deal of 2008, at the Montreal Book Fair. I origin, I always work at a certain which began two years earlier. In books and I watched almost every remember one night there was a fire distance. I’ve always struggled with both cases, it all started on a political film ever made - both fiction and in our hotel and we ended up in the being direct and immediate with level and gradually narrowed down documentary - about the history of basement with all of the other guests, events I feel personally concerned to questions of ethnicity, race and Rwanda, but nothing could replace in the middle of the night, in our by. I don’t know how to recreate even religion… At that time I had the direct encounter with its people. pyjamas! When Our Lady of the Nile historical and social events through just lost my brother, who was killed Foolishly, I had an image of a very was published I read it immediately realistic or naturalistic narratives. during the war. The civil war in violent, chaotic country, filled with and liked it very much. Little did I like recreating a world based on Yugoslavia had also just broken out. noise and under permanent tension. I know I would later have to try my own experiences and ideas. Our That period was particularly violent. When I arrived, the stillness, the to penetrate into the psyche of the Lady of the Nile is a personal, quasi The world’s silence in the face of kindness, the cleanliness and the novel’s characters, and delve into the autobiographical novel, structured these three tragedies horrified me. order all immediately surprised me. inner world and collective imaginary like a chronicle about a school the Ever since then, I had wanted to I was surrounded by peaceful faces; of a people I knew nothing about… author personally attended. Where travel to Sub-Saharan Africa, and Hills covered in fog which exuded It’s quite overwhelming when you do I come in, in all this? And I don’t in particular to Rwanda which, like a sense of calm. That first trip was think about it… mean that it terms of legitimacy but rather of inspiration. I didn’t want to have stayed with me since my college in preparation for what would be Fontenaille’s house (the character is repeat what Scholastique had already years. And that’s is exactly what Our known as the “ Popular Genocide “. played by Pascal Greggory), we see brilliantly written in her book. I had Lady of the Nile is about. The story They pushed out and went on to old photographs and drawings of to reshape the material and extract unfolds in the 1970s, in a Catholic annihilate the consciousness of an Hutus, Tutsis and Twas all posing myself from the specific historical boarding school for girls who are entire nation. Our Lady of the Nile together. Then, right beside them, event in order to create a universal seemingly carefree and yet who find takes place during that preparatory there are photographs of a German story about the human tragedy. themselves thrusted at the center of an phase. anthropologist measuring someone’s Because contrary to literature, cinema irreversible mechanism of violence, There have been some excellent nose in order to better establish the is quite fragile when confronted all in the name of their origins. In and powerful films about the physiological differences between with this kind of story; it can easily the seventies, Rwanda, much like 1994 Rwandan genocide but what individuals. This brings us back to become somewhat trivial. Afghanistan, is under absolute rule. interested me most in Scholastique’s the notions of myth and the sacred. In It isn’t the people who decide, for novel was how it went back to the order to oppose people, we sacralise When did you find your place within better of for worse, their political roots of the conflict, clearly showing one part of a community and we give the story? system. It’s the elite, the technocrates that the interethnic opposition had them a false sense of superiority. After my first trip to Rwanda. As and the leaders. The genocide against first been introduced by the early Like in the Bible, which I quote in a soon as I found, within its culture, the Tutsi of 1994 didn’t arise all of German settlers. It is they who in scene in the church, when the priest something I’ve been obsessed with a sudden or without premeditation. the 19th century decided to brutally mentions Noah’s famous passage. ever since I started writing books Its roots can be found in 1959, when segregate the Rwandan people. Prior There are colonialists and racists and making movies: the relationship the monarchy was overthrown by to that, the people were simply who interpret the text by associating between the sacred and violence. The the Hutu clan. And then later, in differentiated by social class and the curse of Canaan to the fate of all ideas set forth in philosopher René 1973, when the manhunt on the occupation; not by their origins. In descendants of Ham, thus justifying Girard’s “Violence and the Sacred” elite and intellectual class began, the film, when we’re in Monsieur de black slavery. The violence creeps in slowly and The sacred inserts itself everywhere seems even more unreal as it unravels and is even present in your way of in a closed-off environment… filming the faces of these young Yes, indeed.