Mama Rwanda

When I first traveled to Rwanda to shoot this documentary, it was to create an NGO-style film about enterprise solutions to poverty in post-genocide Rwanda. When I arrived, what I saw there wasn’t the generic story of a country’s economic recovery. Instead, I was floored by the role of Rwandan women in transform- ing their nation through the power of entrepreneurship, all while raising their families and carrying the heavy emotional weight of the recent genocide. When I began learning about the astonishing contributions of women to the country, and how Rwanda now has one of the fastest growing economies in the world, I knew I had to focus on their stories.

Because so many men died in 1994, women made up 70% of the Rwandan population post-genocide. Rwandan women had already been through so much –surviving genocide, losing their husbands and children, leading the Parliament, rebuilding the country, and more–the fact that they were taking on economic development and starting new businesses was unbelievable to me. Being a new mom myself, and trying to figure out how to work and have a baby at the same time, I was so inspired by the Rwandan women I met. Like me, they were struggling to balance work and life, but with much higher stakes and much more arduous circumstances. I couldn’t imagine being a widow with five children and expecting myself to start a business at the same time.

I sought to make a documentary that would break down stereotypes of African women, to show the complexity of their lives, and to convey their personal struggles to love their children well while also becoming entrepreneurs. Every working mom I know wrestles with guilt and self-doubt over “having it all.” These women had very similar struggles but with the pressure of literal survival–they were working to save their lives and their children’s lives by starting businesses. Their stories bring new meaning to the idea of work/life balance, and I wanted to explore that theme through film.

The women in the film could not have been more different from one another. Drocella, who lived in a very rural area, was incredibly stoic and hard to read, which was a struggle for me as a director. Many Rwandans have not been educated to think critically about their feelings or to analyze their lives as we have in the Western talk-therapy culture, so it was difficult to get Drocella to really dive deeply into her feelings, which is imperative for a film of this nature. Christine, the mother from the city, however, was highly emotional and vulnerable on and off camera, which I think comes through in the film.

For so many reasons, filming in Rwanda was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Once, our team nearly got arrested for setting up a rig atop a bus to film the local marketplace. And I watched my son — 12 months old at the time — take his first steps there. But it is the unbreakable spirit of the mothers of Rwanda that has had the most enduring impact on me personally. Their strength in the midst of suffering and their determination to do whatever it takes to provide for their families – without the help of their spouses – is a profoundly inspiring story, the likes of which the world desperately needs to hear today.