Anisia Uzeyman

It comes from a desire to speak from Rwanda, for Rwanda and also for the world so that everybody is able to identify themselves in this part of the world that you are not usually invited to enter. On some level, we are all the same.

Cecile Kayiregawa, who plays [the elder nun], is a renowned singer in Rwanda and for anyone who knows that place, [what] it was like to have her, to be able to work with her and to capture her in this film — she’s really revered, it was like meeting a queen.

It is a very interesting thing for every immigrant, that question of where your heart is and what is linking you to a place, especially one that isn’t the easiest of places to exist in.

This is a film we made very independently by ourselves and to be able to see it travel like this and be seen, has been beautiful.

Young people worldwide are demanding the same things that we talk about in the film, and these are universal concerns, but we don’t always take into account that those discussions are also happening in places like Rwanda or Burundi. I wondered, what would it be like to tell the story of these deliberations from the inside instead of the outside.

I wanted to secure a certain quality and technique because it’s a lot of science and a lot of the art to put together an image.