Photo: Lee Isaac Chung's Munyurangabo
There's a patient attentiveness and inquisitiveness to Munyurangabo that seemingly springs, at least in part, from the cultural divide between Korean-American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung and his native Rwandan cast, milieu, and language (Kinya-rwanda). Intense empathy courses throughout Chung's first feature, but more remarkable is his ability to foster great kinship between viewer and subject, his largely handheld cinematography generating forceful intimacy with his story's two teenage protagonists, Munyurangabo (Rutagengwa Jeff) and Sangwa (Dorunkundiye Eric), as well as a tactile sense of environment. Both qualities run deep in this piercing, authentic, and condescension-free tale, in which Munyurangabo embarks on a journey with his friend to kill the man who murdered his father. Nick Schager
There's a patient attentiveness and inquisitiveness to Munyurangabo that seemingly springs, at least in part, from the cultural divide between Korean-American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung and his native Rwandan cast, milieu, and language (Kinya-rwanda). Intense empathy courses throughout Chung's first feature, but more remarkable is his ability to foster great kinship between viewer and subject, his largely handheld cinematography generating forceful intimacy with his story's two teenage protagonists, Munyurangabo (Rutagengwa Jeff) and Sangwa (Dorunkundiye Eric), as well as a tactile sense of environment. Both qualities run deep in this piercing, authentic, and condescension-free tale, in which Munyurangabo embarks on a journey with his friend to kill the man who murdered his father. Nick Schager
