Images of modern slavery. Akosse Legbai, a young Togolese woman, recalls painful memories. Her gentle voice resonates in an empty luxury Parisapartment while she recounts how she came to France two years ago. When she arrived her passport was taken away from her and she was forced to work as a cleaning lady and nanny in an upper-class home, with no leave or salary. After one year, she finally managed to escape from this modern prison.

Photographs and moving images of objects, a covered table, a working washing machine - elements that constituted her domestic universe - bring forth memories of the recent past and of a more distant past, of her childhood in a small village somewhere in Togo.

In his documentary essay Brahim Fatih finds touching images to express anonymity, desertion and longing. He moves with great discretion leaving the words to start healing the wounds of a victim of daily violence and exploitation.

Award: Special Jury Award, Clermont-Ferrand 2005

Ethnic reconciliation in a post-genocidal society. How can the Rwandan people overcome fear, hatred and the trauma of the genocide, to forge a common future in a country where the 1994 attempt to wipe out its Tutsi minority claimed 800.000 dead within 100 days? In 2003, 16.000 confessed participants of the genocide were released across the country still untried, having served the maximum sentence the citizen-based Gacaca tribunals would eventually impose. The perpetrators of appalling crimes were sent home to live side by side with their victims.

In Rwanda we say … focuses on the release of one confessed participant in the genocide, Abraham Rwanfizi, and the impact of his homecoming on neighbours and survivors who blame him for the murder of their families in the town of Gafumba. Whereas the government's message is that of a united Rwandan family, the imposed co-existence brings forth varying emotions: from numb acceptance to repressed rage. Violence seems to lurk just below the surface. But little by little, people begin to talk, first to the camera, then to each other. The camera captures the tension in their faces, the difficult but poetic words, and the long silences, revealing the liberating power of speech.