Ben'Imana

Ben'Imana is the debut feature of Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, and the first film by a Rwandan director ever chosen for the official selection at Cannes. It premiered in Un Certain Regard at the 79th festival in 2026 and won the Caméra d'Or, the prize awarded to the best first film across all sections. A co-production between Rwanda, France and Norway, it was written by Dusabejambo with Delphine Agut.

Set in 2012, the film centres on Vénéranda, a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, who works within the community-led justice and reconciliation processes that sought to rebuild the country. As the pressures of that work mount, a crisis inside her own family forces her to test the limits of forgiveness and belief. Dusabejambo draws restrained, lived-in performances from a largely non-professional cast, and she approaches an almost unbearable subject patiently, without spectacle.

Critics counted it among the real discoveries of the festival, and it holds a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes; MK2 took on international sales. Dusabejambo finds the aftermath of catastrophe in the texture of ordinary lives and choices, and with Ben'Imana she arrives as a major new director in the long conversation about how a society goes on living after genocide.