Na Wewe

This Belgian film talks about a subject that is very much talked about nowadays in Belgium: national identity. The country that holds the record for time taken to form a new democratic government after an election, held until then by Iraq, offered us a very good insight on the essence of national identities. The way the director Ivan Goldsmidt achieved this was by setting his film at the civil war in Burundi and the genocidal conflict between Hutus and Tutsis. A van full of people is stopped by a few gun- wielding rebels, who demand to know everybody's origins. Of course this proves to be extremely complicated, which is why this movie turns into a comedy quite soon, despite the wielding guns. The tension of this situation is effectively used to make a point about the funny irrationality of the idea of national identity. "Na wewe" means "you too" in Kurundi, because this is definitely not a topic concerning only Hutus and Tutsis.