Often called “The African Schindler’s List”, 2004 historical drama “Hotel Rwanda” is based on the true story of a Rwandan hotelier attempting to rescue fellow citizens threatened by the Rwandan genocide.
Hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) finds himself in the middle of racial tensions between Hutu and Tutsi, two main ethnic groups in Rwanda. He is Hutu, and his wife is Tutsi, which is a big thorn in the eye of the local Hutu extremists. When racial tensions escalate and his neighbors start dying in the streets, Rusesabagina manages to bribe the local authorities to ensure the safety of his family. However, when the tensions escalate into a full fledged civil war he moves his family into the hotel he manages. The hotel is soon crowded with over a thousand Rwandan refugees, and Rusesabagina struggles with the increasing responsibilities of not only taking care of his family, but of all the refugees staying at the hotel. With the UN peacekeeping forces unable to intervene, he scrambles to find a way to get his family and the refugees to safety. When a UN plan to evacuate the refugees fails, Rusesabagina makes a desperate attempt to plea with the Rwandan general in charge. When the general is threatened with being tried for war crimes he finally buckles and lets the refugee flee to the safety behind the rebel Tutsi lines. In the written epilogue we find out that Rusesabagina and his family now live in Belgium, and that he is responsible for sawing over a thousand lives of Rwandan refugees.