Our Lady of the Nile

“There is no better high school than Notre-Dame du Nil High School. There is no higher one either. 2,500 meters, the white teachers proudly announce. 2,493, corrects Sister Lydwine, the teacher of geography. "We are so close to heaven," murmurs the mother superior, clasping her hands.

Rwanda, early 1970s. At the Notre-Dame du Nil high school, near the sources of the great Egyptian river, young girls in bloom prepare to become good wives, good mothers, good Christians. But beneath the apparent calm, racial hatred simmers. An "ethnic" quota limits the number of Tutsi students to 10%, persecutions multiply and now the thugs of power approach...

A survivor of the Tutsi massacre, Scholastique Mukasonga offers us a poignant work, in which teenage girls with bare hands try to escape a monstrous History.