Arts & Entertainment
Film Review: ‘Sweet Dreams’
Rwandan documentary chronicles a female drumming troupe’s ice cream venture
T
he 1994 Civil War
left the beleaguered
African nation of
Rwanda a bloody mess,
both literally and figurative-
ly. Not only had the warring
tribes, the Hutus and the
Tutsis, hacked each other to
death with machetes to the
tune of about a million bod-
ies scattered across the
countryside, but to this day
many of the survivors of the
ethnic cleansing remain
totally traumatized by the
slaughter they’d witnessed.
Consequently, much of
K AM ’ S
C APSULES
Movie
Reviews
by Kam
Williams
understandable that it might
hard to get over a conflict
which pitted neighbor
against neighbor, and even
relative against relative.
The film recounts their effort to
open the first ice cream shop
in Rwandan history
the populace still walks
around in a daze sporting
blank, 1,000 yard stares
some refer to as battle
fatigue or shell shock which
shrinks refer to clinically as
post-traumatic stress syn-
drome.
For,
it
is
One survivor, theater
director Kiki Katese, deter-
mined to do something to
alleviate the suffering,
asked, “How do you rebuild
a human being?” So, she
founded Ingoma Nshya
(meaning “new drum, new
kingdom”), an all-female
drumming troupe com-
prised of both Tutsis and
Hutus, with admission
being conditioned on
checking ones tribal alle-
giance at the door. Besides
affording the 60-strong
membership an opportunity
to pound rhythmically on
congas, the gathering
simultaneously served as a
support group offering heal-
ing and reconciliation.
In 2010, Kiki came up
with another innovative
idea, namely, opening
Rwanda’s first ice cream
parlor. This time, she enlist-
ed the support of Jennie
Dundas and Alexis Miesen,
proprietors of a place locat-
ed half a world away in
Brooklyn called Blue Mar-
ble Ice Cream.
The game New Yorkers
answered the call, traveling
to Rwanda to help Kiki real-
ize that dream. Together
they created Sweet Dreams,
a shop owned and operated
cooperatively by a number
of the women from Ingoma
Nshya.
All of the above is affec-
tionately recounted in
Sweet Dreams, an uplifting
documentary co-directed by
Lisa and Rob Fruchtman.
Kiki and her companions
cut a sharp contrast to the
bulk of their fellow country-
men peppering the desolate
background, lost souls who
seem broken in spirit
between mourning mur-
dered kin and facing bleak
prospects for a better tomor-
row.
A female empowerment
flick featuring a blend of ice
cream and drumming as a
viable path to rehabilitation
and reconciliation.
Very Good III
Unrated
In English and Kinyarwanda with subtitles
Running time: 84 minutes
Distributor: International Film Circuit / Liro Films
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October 30, 2013
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