#32: What You Don't Know About Rwanda

Today we have director Ema Edosio-Deelen and Emmy award winning executive producer Richard Hall. They've teamed up for their latest film, Bisesero: A Daughter's Story which is said to be the first major feature about the tragic events in Rwanda in 1994, 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 between April 7th and July 15th, 1994. 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 Birara and his daughter Epiphany fight against the better armed forces trying to exterminate them.

This movie is slated for release in 2024, the 30th anniversary of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Welcome Richard and Emma.

Thank you.

Did I get that all right?

Yes. It's a very complicated context of history. But if you had to just summarize it in In a few words, that that's a good summary.

Yeah, the summarizing, that was definitely a challenge. But, you know, we'll go through all the details here, because I think both Gabriela and I don't know that much. We shouldn't, we don't know as much as we should know.

 We were talking ahead of this. We're like, you know, the title of our podcast is tell us something we don't know, and honestly, we don't know very much about it. So that's why we're excited to have you guys. And so kind of give us the top line 

 In, in 1994 was sort of the culmination of like 30 years of persecution against the minority Tutsi in Rwanda. The country became independent in the late 1950s. It used to be a [00:02:00] colony from Europe. And then when the Belgians left the Hutu majority took power and they started persecuting the minority Tutsi for years.

Many Tutsi fled the country. And the persecution got worse, and then the Tutsi actually formed a exile government, an exile army to try to bring equity back to Rwanda for its future, and that ended up turning into some battles that the government, the Hutu government used to persecute more Tutsis, and then Finally, it triggered a massive massacre of people that started for a hundred days in 1994, where the Tutsi, the Hutu government supported by European allies, by the way, with, with arms started a full scale genocide against the Tutsi people.

So those figures that you read, 500, are actually on the low side. They think it's definitely closer to 800 to a million Tutsi, moderate Hutsi, and moderate Hutu and, and Twa that were, that were killed. So keep in mind that the Tutsicivilians weren't allowed to arm themselves with any kinds of weapons other than farm.

Instruments like that they would have, and maybe some spears and they're up against an army that's been equipped by a modern European force. There's so many stories from this from what happened in 1994. If you think about, like, if you compare it to, like, the Holocaust, there have been 400 films made about the Holocaust.

Each one of them highlighting a different story. Some of them very accurate, some of them you know, based on real events. And these films have been coming out for 75 years without any pause. If you look at a chart of films about the Holocaust, it, they come out every year. There's, there's a film because the, the stories are so important to tell and there's so many stories to tell.

In your introduction, that one of the things that we say about our film is that this is the first major film about this told by Africans about Africans, and that that is said for a reason said the boy sitting in Los Angeles, who also has a home in Kigali we say that for a reason, because there were a little grouping of films about this around 2005, 2006, you may have heard of some of them, you may have heard of Hotel Rwanda, for example, but And all of these films are, you know, they're historically flawed.

And now, of course, you know, Hollywood taking on a historical subject, you can just pretty much anticipate that, no, it didn't happen exactly this way. But when you get into the historical flaws of the films about the genocide, they have some pretty serious consequences. And one of them, Hotel Rwanda in particular has a serious flaw in it that's so significant that it actually threatens the stability of the government of Rwanda today. And let me explain why that

Yeah. What, what is that? Yeah.

The the protagonist, the hero of Hotel Rwanda, played by Don Cheadle. And Don Cheadle is such a wonderful actor and, you know, you just fall in love with him on the screen. And, you know, just like, he's one of my favorites. I can't even mention his [00:05:00] name around my wife, who is a survivor of the Tutsi ,genocide.

The character that he plays is portrayed as someone who went way out of his way to save every tootsie like he could in the hotel he was managing. This is not true. He was more of a, he would sell safety to people. You know, people had to pay him off to get into the hotel, and if they didn't pay him off, sometimes they were kicked out of the hotel, and that meant that they would be killed.

He charged people to drink water from the swimming pool in the hotel. So he was hardly a philanthropist. He may have actually been, you know, more of a collaborator, you know, with the Huttenbauer.

And so that wasn't in the movie is what you're saying.

Oh, no, that's conveniently left out.

Conveniently. Yeah.

I mean, just by watching the trailer, I'm like, that's not even close to what. Like you're saying happened, like, it's just, but and he himself was a Hutu married to a Tutsi, wasn't that, is that, was that true, that part?

 yes, yes, that, that's part true. I mean, I think the film was made, I think the film was made with very good intentions. I, I think that once Hollywood, you know, found a story that was just too good to pass up. Like he was a cab driver and he told somebody the story about himself to a screenwriter and a screenwriter producer said how this story But you know, it was just too good to be true He wasn't this, you know, this saint and the reason it's significant is because he has since become There was a lot of resentment in Rwanda for him getting all this credit for being this hero that he wasn't but then there were like hundreds of thousands of people who fled Rwanda who were perpetrators of the genocide and they have propped them up as sort of this.

Anti hero to the president of Rwanda, who is the one who rescued Rwanda from the genocide. So he's actually become, um, he's been associated with terrorist groups that attack Rwanda on its border. And he's been associated with, you know, obviously with [00:07:00] opposition to the stability of Rwanda that has been hard won after all these 30 years.

So the fact that this, he was glorified and the West has glorified him unquestionably. Anytime he gives an interview, the New York Times and the BBC fawn all over him and, and And, and then accused the Rwandan president of being a you know, repressive dictator. And it's, it's just a battle, it's a PR battle is what it is.

He is being used by the people who perpetrated the genocide, who fled the country, who actively are trying to destabilize Rwanda to this day. So you see, this is just a movie with Don Cheadle, and all of a sudden, it's become something that's like people's, people's lives, like 18 people were killed in a terrorist attack from his group.

In Rwanda, so it's like, wow, this is kind of mind blowing that a mistake or an arrogant mistake that Hollywood make on a movie like that,

 I mean they say, yeah, I saw the movie Hotel Rwanda, he's great, and why is the president so mean to him?

right, right, right. And that's why you guys  are doing this film because you want to get it. You want to get it right. First of all, first and foremost, right? And, and have it be a factual representation of actually what happened. And, and Richard, this isn't your first project about this.

You have a documentary out as well on Amazon. Is that right?

Yes, it's called the 600, and the 600 were 600 of the Tutsi, you know, rebel army forces that were sent to the capital to help protect, Politicians were negotiating a coalition government in 1994. And then they became targets of the, of the, of the overall genocide. And they were attacked by the Rwandan army much superior forces.

They held out, they counterattacked, they rescued people. Eventually they linked up with their, the rest of their army. And they drove the former government and the former army out of the country and rebuilt Rwanda. And it's a very, that was a very personal film for me 'cause it's basically the story about how my wife was rescued.

It was by her uncles.

Wow. And I want to get into [00:09:00] that and kind of your connection to all this. So Emma, tell us your kind of POV about it all. And where are you from? Where were you raised? And how did you link up with Richard on this project?

I'm Nigerian. I live and I was, I was born in Nigeria. I live in Nigeria. And you know, I'm a huge fan of stories like this. Celebrating strong African characters. For me, for a long time, when you talk about movies from Africa, it's usually about all these poor sad people and, you know, war time, war and some of, some of it, you know, it's, it's true, but for me, I'm.

I'm really tired of the poverty porn and the focus on destruction and death. And one thing that I want to do is to celebrate strong, dynamic African characters. It takes a lot to live in Africa for you to exist and survive there. You have to have to be really strong and that's my ethos as a director to celebrate this character.

And so Richard reached out to me with this project. He reached [00:10:00] out to me on LinkedIn and said, Hey, I have this project. Do you want to get on a phone call and, or talk about it? And then we got on the call and he told me about this world and this character who's still alive today, Epiphany, and I fell in love with it.

I fell in love with the characters. I fell in love with the story and, and that, that was how I got, got involved with the project. And for me, I would keep saying this is celebrating these amazing, strong people who survived this hard, hard war and came out stronger. And that's like the story of most Africans, you know, surviving in this harsh continent and still succeeding.

Yeah.

I wish we had Epiphany, but tell us how did Richard how did that story kind of come about for you to kind of open it up?

We actually, when, when we released the documentary we got a, like this very kind of sad plaintive email from someone in Bicestero, which is out in the countryside,  in a very poor part of the country, and kind of remote, and they said, could you please bring your film and show it here? We think everyone's forgotten about us and we want to, we want to be part of the, the new film.

So that kind of broke my heart because they don't have a movie theater there. So I couldn't really arrange a screening, but I wanted to do a follow up film after the documentary. And the problem with doing it Is that, you know, there's no very few survivors. Everybody's homes were burned down and ransacked.

So there's no photographs, you know, everything has changed. So you have to tell someone's story like this. You have to do it as a feature. And that's why I reached out to Emma, who Is making really, you know, groundbreaking films in Nigeria and I, I wanted to find, you know, a strong African woman director to tell me the strong African woman story.

And I think it's a perfect, it's a perfect match. Emma's been up we've had several, you know, field trips to go up there to meet the people. And originally we were trying to, going to do the story about Berara, um, who was the leader of the resistance who got killed. But we had a hard time because of the, you know, just there's no photos of him and very few people are alive today who survived, who knew him and could tell us much about his life or much about him.

But Epiphany was standing right there. She's right there. And we started talking to her. And the more we started talking to her, we just said, Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We have to do this. We have to tell her story because it's extraordinary and she's here to tell us and she's also here to give us notes on like we can ask her a question.

I said, did you actually do this? And she goes, no, it was like this. And, you know, so we can keep the story very authentic. 

 the overall story that attracted us was the fact that this was a huge, um, resistance led by a man who was just basically like a local respected man living in the countryside, you know, he had two farms and two families and, you know, everybody knew this guy. He was sort of like a community icon. And then literally tens of thousands of Tootsie, you know, came  toward him.

To the hills where he lived because they knew about him and they wanted his protection and he organized a resistance you know, and there he was protecting up to the, the numbers vary, but up to 40 to 50, 000 people were either fighting or being protected by him. And then his daughter and his sons fought by his side.

Most, most of them, most of them were killed. And originally we thought we have to tell this resistance story. But then we changed it to Epiphany's point of view because she's such an amazing resource and she's alive to tell. The story.

How old

So what,

Oh, sorry. Do you

Epiphany is she was 17 and it's she's 46.

Wow. Okay. Go ahead, Orly. Sorry.

No, I was just going to ask, what was her father's background that everybody came to him for protection? Because you said he was a farmer or what was it about him that what was his background?

he was sort of like a chief. You know, if you want to use very broad, generic [00:14:00] terminology, he was a highly respected man in the community. He had, like I said, he had two farms, so he had, he was a man of means. He had cows, which is a very big currency in the countryside of Rwanda.

He would give cows away. to make friendships and bonds between families. He would receive cows from people who wanted to make bonds and friendship with his family. So, I mean, he was, I wouldn't say he was wealthy. He didn't have servants or anything, but he had a large family and two of them. And he had two large farms.

And he had also as I mentioned, there were other attacks on Tootsies during the whole era of independence for Rwanda. He was a leader of the defen defense of Tootsies during these smaller attacks. And he was successful in protecting people. So that's why his reputation was so well known.

Okay. So I have another might be kind of a stupid question, but what was the Hutu's justification for like always attacking them and always trying to get [00:15:00] rid of them? Okay. Like, what was their, what was their conflict?

yeah. So uh, it's such a complicated, I mean, you could take, you could take a graduate course on this to understand the,

Don't make me do

The roots of this. Yeah. So I'll give you, I'll give you a cliff note. The European colonizers, the Germans, the French, and then the Belgians all had their hand in colonizing Rwanda, which was one of the last African countries to submit to Christianity and colonial and being a colony and that sort of stuff.

So they were, They were Wakanda. If you watch the movies, they literally, when they show that map you know, where Wakanda is, that's actually where Rwanda is. But over the years, the Belgians exploited the cultural, not the cultural, the tribal, I guess, difference between Tutsi and Hutus. The Tutsi were 20 percent of the population.

The Hutu were 80%. The Tutsi were, were cow, you know, people.  The Hutu were farmers. 

So when, when the Belgians came in, they, they took the Tutsi and they made them their agents of administration of the colony.

Okay. And so this created resentment where there had not been resentment before, so the Tootsie were kind of propped up and they were given, you know, these plum jobs and they were given the power in the country. And then There was a shift in the Belgian politics before they granted independence to Rwanda that was largely led by the church.

Belgian priests started saying you know Hutus, you've been oppressed by the Tutsi for so long, which is really ironic because they were being oppressed by the Belgians. And they, they they sort of nurtured a movement for independence to put the Hutus in power. So anytime you turn the reins of power from one group to another, there's going to be there's going to be violence, basically.

And, and then the violence got exploited. There was a, a movement called Hutu Power which then started working making what the, what the Belgians did even worse. I mean, the Belgians used to Do all this like racial studies, they would like measure Tutsi's foreheads and noses and they would say we can tell you who's a Tutsi and who's a Hutu by how big their nose and forehead are.

And they were, they were exploiting, like, it was very much like what the Nazis did with the Jews, you know, and then they, they the Hutus the radio, which was controlled by the government, once Rwanda became independent. was dominated with Hutu power ideology where they started talking about, you know, the Tutsis don't, don't employ them, don't marry them, don't let them go to school there, and they called them the names, you know, like the cockroaches and all this kind of stuff, and they, they really preyed upon this class differentiation that was created by the Belgians because before that,

Yeah.

ethnic groups live together with absolutely no problem.

Yeah. Yeah. That's

So what was it? You know, you mentioned that your wife is [00:18:00] from there. So kind of talk to us a little bit about that and, and what she experienced firsthand.

She was from a different part of Rwanda, but also out in the countryside. She is, you know I mean, she lost about two dozen family members. In various ways. She escaped only because her older sister had, you know, was, was with her. She was like 14. Her older sister was like 20, you know, one or two.

And they, they ran and they hid and they just hid and they hid. And they. Would get caught, and then they'd get away, and, and Eventually they ended up in Like a displaced persons refugee camp, And their uncles, who were part of the liberating Tutsi army, That, you know, came to drive the, and the genocide they came to look for their relatives, Who they hadn't seen, you know, for like years, Because they had fled like 30 years before, And they couldn't find any surviving relatives and they were [00:19:00] almost going to give up.

anD the one uncle just said, I just can't believe that nobody's alive. And so they, they finally, they went to this one DP camp and they literally just walked through the camp asking people like they'd never met these girls, but they knew their names. And they went until they actually, they found them.

And then the girls were like, who are you? You're a complete strangers to them. And they say, I'm your, I'm your uncle Philbert. He's wearing the RPA uniform. So they knew that he was, you know, legit. And they took them, the two sisters to. Kigali, the capital city. And then they sort of became their, their family and their parents from that point on.

that is so traumatic. And you said she was 14 and all her older sister was, I mean, how does she think when she looks back on it now?

So my, my wife works at the Shoah Foundation here at

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.

Which is a genocide and holocaust archive, basically, set up originally by Steven Spielberg. And she worked prior to coming to the United States in 2007. She worked at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. So, you know, she is all about the preservation and the history, which has inspired me to make the movies.

Although she just doesn't want to talk about her own experience.

Yeah, I get that. I understand that.

What was it like for you, Richard, going to Rwanda for the first time? 

I've been to Africa, you know, a lot of times before, mostly because I worked on The Amazing Race. You know, in the early 2000s, so I already had this, you know, a great sense of excitement about going to Rwanda. And I think what impressed me the most was how my wife's family sort of rebuilt itself. In the sense that calling people sister, dad, you know, cousin, who maybe not even are your sister or cousin.

Just because the need for family is just so great. And then. Of course, I met the two uncles, [00:21:00] the two veterans of the of the Rwandan Patriotic Army. And right away, it was like getting these amazing tales of, like, what happened how they found, you know, my wife, how they how they, how they drove the, you know, the, the government out of the country, how they were, you know, they were just all morale and, and no sophisticated weapons and out, outnumbered.

But they were fighting for a cause, and the other side was not really fighting for a cause, they were just trying to kill people. So, they were very inspiring, and then, actually, there was a museum that just opened up, um, called the Campaign Against Genocide Museum, which nobody goes to, but it had just opened up that, like, the same week that I came to Rwanda, and it's a military museum, and I went in there, and, and my uncles had already been filling my ear with their own stories, and then I go to this museum, which is all about the 600.

Soldiers and, and the rest of the and the rest of the RPA, and  it's very impressive, you know, it's one of the great military stories of all time, what they did, and then I just walked out of the museum, and I just talked to one of my wife's cousins was in media in Rwanda, when I said, hasn't, why hasn't, who's making the movie about this, because it's just too amazing, and she said, nobody, because, you know, the arts were not like the first thing Rwanda wanted to rebuild after being at ground zero,

Yeah.

So I ended up making that movie about the 600 and then, of course, inspired to make this movie about the civilian resistance in Bicicero afterwards.

Gotcha. And so how did it all end in 1994? what is the status of the Tootsies now?

So the same general who led the Tutsi rebel army to liberate Rwanda and end the genocide. That same general eventually became the president of Rwanda, and he's been the president of Rwanda for three terms, and he's running for a fourth [00:23:00] term. anD in that time many things have happened in Rwanda that would be unbelievable.

One is it's become the Singapore of Africa. Now you're talking about a country that went from below ground zero, where just like millions of people dead, and even the animals dead, and everything burned down, and just like, you know, the worst place on earth in 1994. He, his forces drove the quite a few.

Of the former army out of the country, and they went into Congo among other places, and they're still there. They, they, you know, created their own communities, and they've sort of been a threat to Rwanda ever since. But, inside Rwanda the country has been remarkably stable. It has made tremendous advances in female representation in the government, in education electrification.

tHey built up an amazing tourist sector. They they have a guerrilla tour that is not to be believed. That's very well regulated, so they're very strong environmentalists. They don't allow plastic bags in the country, for example.

interesting.

they are a really fascinating study in what was needed in a country that was that destroyed.

He also created a reconciliation program because he had over 100, 000 people in prison who were being part of the genocide. And that was not sustainable. So Les Brown, maybe not even 10 years after the genocide, he set up this system of if you came out and confessed your sins and asked for forgiveness, you could come back into society.

Hmm.

And it was a, it was a thing called the Cha Cha Court. And the community would sit like wherever they were, they would sit there, the people would come in the orange jumpsuits from prison, and they would say, I did this, I killed your family, I feel really bad about it, I want to, you know, know if we can, if we can sit side by side and continue to, you know, have a, have a society.

And if they said that, and if the if the Tutsi survivor accepted that, they were They were let out of prison. So,

work?

I mean, I think by many measures, it clearly did.

That's

Because, I mean, no system is perfect, right? But I think what you have in Rwanda is just like Epiphany in Bicicero. lives side by side with the people who killed her family.

Wow.

and that she's just made that, you know, something that she accepts, um,

Do they marry? Do they marry each other, though? Or is that, that's, that's

Sure.

They've made a lot of progress

they made a lot. Okay. So it's not just that they can, cohabitate each other, but they actually, there isn't that conflict. 

They're besties.

Yeah, you know, before the Europeans came you could become, you could become a member of either tribe, you know, through marriage or even by just getting a cow. You could just like, you could have been a Hutu farmer, and then if you got two cows, then you, they said, oh, you're a Tutsi. So a lot of what the society was before is being restored.

But it takes, you know, it takes a long time to heal all wounds, of course.

have a lot of graduate level questions for Richards, including why Europeans ruined the place in the first place. But I think I want to talk about how this movie actually came together. Like, Emma, so you got this email from him. And then were you a little bit like, why does this white American man want to say this story?

Were you at all or did he already give you the background about why he was interested in doing this?

no, I wasn't surprised as to him trying to make the story. Especially when I heard he's married to a Tutsi and who had been through the genocide and through the conflict. And I wasn't surprised. I think what I was, what I would. say about Richard is that he's really interested in telling the authentic story.

He's,  he's very particular about having everything being truthful, having everything you know, having the movie made according to how, being, being factual. And that, you know, you hardly find that with a lot of, Western filmmakers who come into Africa, they want to fashion the story to meet like a Hollywood audience.

But Richard is very particular about that, about having the story be authentic, you know. And that's one of the things that really drew me to this to this story. And yeah, having him, you know, on the project or him reaching out to me and working together, it's just been very seamless and very, very very, very seamless as an African working with him.

Yeah.

So is it challenging having to be so factual? I mean, I always wonder like, you know, with Hollywood Richard, like you were saying with the Don Cheadle movie, Hotel Rwanda. And I wonder sometimes if it's just easier to not be factual just because you could control the story. Yeah.

No, it's, it's, it's, it's a fascinating story. It's quite, it's quite, it's, it's, it's a  story that it's so well formed that it fits perfectly for screen, right? I mean,

Yeah,

just meeting Epiphany and just listening to her and standing on the mountain where everything happened and having her show you how she threw stones at the Hutsu militias.

It's like, it's like, it's like, it's a ready made movie. So. It's, it's not been hard following the, or having the film being factual, it's just been so well made and you have such amazing characters and everything pop out and, you know, it's been great so far. Yeah.

watch a documentary about you guys making it because that's kind of crazy to go watch Epiphany, you know, like alive, like you said, alive and well and still young, you know, recounting the story to you live about where she was

you're saying she's throwing stones. So again, kind of going back to that notion ofthe Hutus were using guns and  real weapons and the Tootsies were used to tell us a little bit more about that.

So, you know, it's so Birara had some experience fighting in the past. And the main thing about this film is how does he take this group of farmers and cattle herders and turn them into like well formed armies, you know, well formed fighters. And one of the things that was even quite fascinating was the fact that they used what they had.

farm equipment, they used stones from the mountain, and they, they formed, you know, the way that they had a very well formed battle strategy. And for me, it's while listening to all these people talk about it, they were broken into three layers. They were the stone throwers.

Who would the stone gatherers and the stone throwers who would throw the stones to destabilize the militias coming up this hill. And then you had people who run into the crowd and beara will scream at the, the men to run in a  mixing. And these men will run into the crowd of militias and grab them. You know, so they, they, you know, they couldn't fire into this mix because they had their people and they had the Tutsis in them, and they would grab the the, the militias.

You know, you sticks to hit them and fight them and they were so good at using the sticks that they had places on their body where they could hit and literally kill this man.

God. Well, while the other side has guns while the other

Yeah,

that's insane.

you know the fascinating thing was the Tutsis didn't know how to use guns.

So they would take the guns and bury these guns.

God.

it's quite an amazing story, right? And you know, just having it being factual is just enough to

Yeah, yeah.

life. Yeah,

Yeah. You can't even make that up. It's like just so intense.

yeah.

So, so tell us more about your background, Emma. I know you're right now in New, in New York, and you're there for another film of  yours. But you're a director. A cinematographer, a writer is, is that right? Tell us a little bit more about how you got into it all.

So, so I, the typical African family where everybody expects their child to either be a lawyer, doctor, or whatnot. And then I wake up this morning and I tell my parents, Oh, I'm going to be a filmmaker. And they're like, what, what is that? You know, so they're like, okay, go to school, study computer science.

And I went to school and I studied computer science for six years and I said, okay, I'm done. I have this. Certificate, I'm going to study film. And then I went to, I went to film school in Michigan. I went to I did some courses in New York and then I came back to Nigeria. And the industry in Nigeria is growing so big, you know we have companies like Netflix.

We have Amazon coming into Africa because, you know, and then there was this need for skills. And then that's where my, my journey started. I worked for some of the biggest. TV brands here in, in Africa. And [00:32:00] then I also worked as a video journalist with the BBC and Bloomberg. So while I was working as a video journalist in BBC with the BBC, I would go into communities and interview people.

And I was really so inspired by. You know, having people in like the, the, the, the hardest, the hardest, hardest parts of society in Nigeria or in West Africa or in Africa and have them talk to me with so much pride and so much, you know, there was a big community and that struck me and I really wanted to make films celebrating people from this part of the community, this, this marginalized areas of Africa and show their strength and show their you.

They have, you know, their passion, their community. And so I, I, I said, okay, fine. I want to make stories like this before then I was making stories for big brands, fancy films, you know, everybody wealthy, you know, speaking Queens English. And I just said, okay, I was going to make, I [00:33:00] was going to make my first film.

Casa La, and it's a story about four boys. In one of the biggest slums in Lagos, one of them still they have uncle's precious rickety car and they wreck it and the story was how they struggled to raise 25 to fix the car and everything that you can imagine going wrong and with these characters I experienced Explore the problems within the society, but at the end of the day, celebrate the strength of this boy.

Celebrate the tenacity and the community. And you know, the film traveled to 13th International Film Festival's 1 9 award and you know, such a good, great success. I was like, yeah, I'm going to make my second one. And I made the second film about this simstress who discovers her father is alive and she has to go back to find him.

And in finding her father, she deals with. Her commitment issues and emotional issues and she's able to resolve that and find love. And that's the second film that I'm presenting here in New York. So a lot of my films have been about strong community and that's why [00:34:00] when Richard reached out to me about Bicicero, The Doctor's Story, I was like, yes, I want to make this.

I want to make this. It's a strong female character. It's, it's, it's straight out, just hearing him, at first I thought it was, I thought this, this is just too, it's just too fascinating to be real. Until I went to Rwanda and I saw all these people and I was, I stood on the same hill and you know, it just struck my heart and I was like, this is, this is a film that I want to be involved with.

And that's just how my background ties into this, this film. Yeah. Laughter.

parents and everybody in Nigeria expecting you to be, you know, a doctor or a lawyer as Persians, who you

can relate. We can relate.

glad we've all disappointed our

know all of us. 

but I mean, and I, you mentioned the term poverty porn earlier and I thought it was really interesting because I always thought about, and I'm sure I've complained to [00:35:00] Gabriella about this, about movies about the Middle East where everything is sad, you're, there's, there's no uplifting story about that.

No, these people aren't always sad and depressed and have nothing going for them and have no hope. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of that going on, a lot of success and happiness. So,

by the way, I went to, so I was born in the U. S. and I went to Iran for the first time like 10 years ago. And I was shocked that it wasn't like the movies that I had seen. I was like, this place is beautiful. Tehran is modern. Like, I love this place, you know? And I think that it is, it's so, it's so funny that movies are really a lot of what.

Gives us the under influence us so much, and that's why it's amazing that you guys are, you know, trying to keep it factual. And are you do you have, you know, historians, researchers going through? How are you kind of making sure that it is as factual and authentic [00:36:00] as it could be?

I'll

Definitely a process. Yeah.

ha ha ha

definitely a process. One of our co producers is is a survivor who has worked, um, with survivor groups. And so she's been the one person that every time we went to see Epiphany, she's been with us. And we also work with the Kigali Genocide Memorial team and in a way, when you do any film in Rwanda about genocide against the Tutsi, you have to work with the government agency.

They have a government agency to ensure that you're doing it, you know, factually. So, yeah, we have, we have several layers of of fact checking on it.

And Richard, how, tell us a little bit about your career trajectory and what you've, you know, you're working in television and then getting to documentaries and, and tell us how you kind of started this path for yourself , 

let me, I'll give a shout out to my dad, my late father, Monty Hall, who [00:37:00] was the game show host, very beloved in this country and, you know, with a long, popular show that ran on TV for many years. 

So my sisters and I, I have two sisters, we all grew up in the entertainment industry atmosphere and we're all in the entertainment industry. I, I started my own path in, in television news in, in New York City for ABC news, then I moved to San Francisco where I was able to, you know, move up the ladder quickly.

And I ran a news department there. Starting at age 26, I was kind of a bratty executive and then after, you know, about a decade of news, I went out on my own and I started getting into documentary and unscripted where I met you, Gabriela, in the unscripted world, right after I worked on The Amazing Race, I think, I came, that's when we started working together

So Richard was my mentor, is my mentor. He was the person that kind of gave me that first shot of my first, like, real producer gig. And so I'm forever, forever indebted to him.

Gabriela moved on to you know, tremendous things that I had nothing to do with, but I, I appreciate her her shout out,

 But I kept doing documentaries even while I was doing dating shows and weight loss comp and fashion You know competition shows those were like the bread and butter It was just there was just so many of them and it was so much fun to do them I did the PBS documentary and I did the 600 and I never wanted to really let go of sort of that route.

And so I've had different careers. I had the news, I had the unscripted, I had the documentary, and now I'm going into feature. And that's, I think, the really great thing about being in this business is that you can morph and use the same skill sets. It's all storytelling.

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I think, you know, I do what I do because I love storytelling at the heart of everything. You know, even this podcast, that's how it all started. My curiosity. I mean, what would you say for you was  the thing that kept you going through this crazy business? Richard?

Ah, I mean, it's, I think just, it's the people you work with, really. Like when I was working with you, we just had the greatest time we were having fun and we would celebrate, you know, like we could tell a story really well. And we would celebrate our successes and we would have challenges. And, and, you know, because of our network clients and stuff like that, you know, we had to deliver.

So it was this delicious combination of, of pressure reward challenge. And people that you get to work with. Like a bunch of misfits, like, like all of us, who just didn't want to become doctors or lawyers.

I love it.

 our poor parents. 

So we're going to jump into rapid fire questions. Are you guys ready? This is a little fun, a little keep you on your toes. Emma, Emma looks terrified. Emma's like, what is this?

like, I lost connection.

Sorry. What was that? All right. [00:40:00] I'm going to start with you, Emma. Instant coffee. Yes? Or you'd rather die?

Yes. Thank you. Am I love you? Okay.

As Richard takes a swig of his Folgers Instant.

He's making his powder.

Richard, is it bad to cut flowers from your neighbor's garden? Oh,

done it. No,

man. 

No, it's not.

Yeah. Yeah. EMma, what is the best middle of the night snack?

A Snickers bar,

Oh, yes. That's like supposed to hit all the major food groups too. So you know,

healthy salad. Oh no, you

Richard, have you ever given yourself a haircut

Oh

even during COVID?

no, my daughter did when [00:41:00] she was three, though, it was the funniest thing. We just found all the, found all of her hair in the waste paper basket, but yeah, no I've never done it.

Emma, who is your personal hero?

dad, I think you're my dad. Yeah, I'm such a daddy's girl, yeah.

Why would you say if you had to?

I think because we, he, he taught me everything. My dad, we're from a family of one boy, six girls and

Is the one boy the last one?

he's a first and he was always in boarding school. So I became like he's, I became like a tomboy. I was like, my dad's right there, man. Yeah, he taught me everything. Yeah. So that's why I'm very technical. I'm very technical with everything. He taught me how to fix things and all of that. Yeah. Yeah.

My heart goes out to your brother with six PMS thing in that house.

I mean, I, that's amazing. Richard, who's your personal hero?

My personal hero is Robert Kennedy Sr. The one who was assassinated in 1968. He was my childhood hero because I really felt that he was gonna, like, bring the country together. You know, he had this coalition of the West side, Los Angeles progressives and the African American community and the Hispanic community.

Cesar Chavez used to campaign with him. And I just thought this is like the ideal, you know, leader for this country. And then he was killed when I was a kid. So he kind of stuck with me. I always roll up my sleeves like he did. So if you, if that's what he used to

vibes. Yeah,

Yeah. So I that's something that's like, I've done that since I was a kid because of him.

And yeah, he was my hero.

I love that. Orly, your hero.

You Gabriela

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. 

Emma, what is the worst advice you've ever received?

worst advice?  Oh, there's been a lot.

Well, give us the, give us the best advice because sometimes when you rejigger, you're the best advice or some go to, it reminds you of the people that kind of told you the opposite.

So I think the best advice has was like my mom, she says she used to say success has plenty brothers and sisters. Yeah. She's just like, just focus on. Making, doing the, being the best, focus on, focus on your craft and every other thing will gravitate towards you and that's just like one of the things that stuck with me.

Yeah,

love that.

yeah. So,

Richard, can you think of the worst advice?

I mean, I think my dad always was a really solid, you know, guy, but he did say. You know, go to law school. You want to go into entertainment, Bureau of Law, you got a law degree, you can be the president of the studio, and people can work for you instead of you working for them. And that was advice that I'm glad I didn't take, because I hated anything to do with law.

So yeah, that would have been the worst. But he also gave me the best advice, which was, whatever you you know, come up with, own it. Like if it's an intellectual property, like he owned, let's make a deal. He said, don't give away your stuff, try to own it.

Ah,

Okay.

that that's really great advice.

I didn't know that your dad owned let's make a deal.

Yeah.

Yeah, he made it up. He used to do a live radio show back when they used to do live radio shows. And when they were short of time or had time to kill at the end of the show, he used to go into the audience and do the very first version of let's make a deal. Like he would say, I'll give you a dollar for every quarter you have in your pocket, you know, and then it just became so popular.

That he said I think I'm on to something and he made less big a deal.

oh, I love that story. Yeah. So real quick, I'm going to tell you guys best advice I've ever gotten from Richard. He said he said to, I asked, I asked him basically like, how do you deal with stress and you know, whatnot. And he said to me you tap into your senses and so, you know, take a Take a sniff, look around, you know, look and just basically tap into them.

And if there is something that it does, it kind of calms you down. And so I use that to this day. 

She does. Because I think you've told me that before. Yes.

Richard's words of wisdom. 

Okay, are you guys Swifties?

What is Swifties?

Richard knows,

have grown daughters and a and a and a like a kindergartener, but, um, I'm a Swiftie because I think she's one of the most powerful political forces in this country and I love everything she's doing. I'm all for it.

I love that this question was the one Richard nailed right away.

 And finally, tell us something we don't know.

Well, I think I did that earlier on when I told you that the Don Cheadle character was not who they say he was I would say that What people don't know Is that this is going to be the african century? thAt africa is going to be the place where you're going to see the most, uh, amazing prosperity creativity And it's, it's going to, it's going to be Africa century and it hasn't been that way for a long time.

But the rest of the world is falling apart and I believe that, you know, when my wife and I talk about where do we, do we ever want to leave West Los Angeles, we actually talk about going back to Rwanda. So, there were lots of reasons for that. I think that the explosion in, in the arts from Africa is something that  the West does not see coming, but it's coming.

Okay.

 And Emma?

That's almost exactly what I wanted to say. I'm such a huge fan Africanist, like there's so much talent here. And I think that this is the next the next. We have stories that have never been seen, worlds that have never been seen, and it's going to be amazing what will come up from this part of the world in the coming years.

Yeah.

I'm actually excited because I'm sick of this shit we've been saying over and over again all the time. So I look forward to Africa's Century.

 All right, guys. So where can we find you? Emma, where can we find you?

Oh, I'm on social media Instagram at emmaedosio, E M A E D O S I O. It's emmaedosio on all platforms, so you can find me there. Yeah.

And Richard, where can people find you? 

 I'm on, on Twitter X at Puradusa, P U R A D U C O,

Amazing. and again Bisesero: A Daughter's Story  will be coming out in 2024. And we're just, we can't wait and thank you guys for sharing your story and being on our show with us.

Thank you guys.

Thanks for having us.