This Intrepid Journey sees comedian Rhys Darby taking a Rwandan OE. In the excerpts Darby makes lots of friends in the markets of capital city Kigali, then heads on a jungle adventure. Far from the New York office of his Flight of the Conchords character Murray, he searches for critically endangered mountain gorillas. Darby is guided by François — a personable and entertaining park ranger, fluent in primate dialect — whose aping gives Darby a run for his money in gorilla impersonation. Darby is quietened by a sombre genocide memorial, and a 200 kilogram silverback.

Act of Kindness follows the search for one very helpful man, in a country of 11 million people. In 1999 Kiwi Sven Pannell arrived penniless in Rwanda, after bribing himself out of a worrying encounter with rebel militia in Burundi. He was saved by a street beggar who spoke perfect English. Eight years later Pannell got the chance to return to Rwanda with camera in hand, and say thanks — if only he can track his saviour down. Directed by Pannell and Costa Botes (Forgotten Silver), the documentary is a portrait of compassion, obsession, and a nation recovering from tragedy.

Amadi is a Rwandan refugee struggling with his new life in New Zealand. Alone, patronised in his menial job (he’s called “Africa” by a workmate), and anxious about rescuing his family from his war-torn ‘home’; he forms an unlikely connection with the prickly lady living next door. Directed by 2009 Spada New Filmmaker of the Year, Zia Mandviwalla, Amadi joined Eating Sausage, Clean Linen, and Cannes-selected Night Shift to form a quartet of Mandviwalla-made shorts exploring cross-cultural collision. It screened at Melbourne and Hawaii international film festivals.

Company JAM TV have made a speciality of successfully mixing idiosyncratic hosts with travel destinations (Intrepid Journeys, Off the Rails). For this series, comedian Te Radar explores "big picture questions" (pollution, power, waste and water), while visiting people "making a difference" everywhere from Blenheim to Brunei, from Tonga to Rwanda. Global Radar had two seasons on TV One (in 2011 and 2013) and won a NZ Television Award for Best Information Series (it was nominated for Best Presenter). Radar picked Rwanda's 'goats for gorillas' programme as a personal highlight. 

Brooke Fraser took her inspiration for ‘Albertine’ from a girl she met in Rwanda who had been orphaned by the Rwandan genocide, which claimed 800,000 lives in 1994. Believing that “faith without deeds is dead”, Fraser resolved to tell the orphan's story to the world. A similar determination to be more than just a “voyeur of tragedy” is underlined in Anthony Rose’s elegantly understated video, which deals not in terrible statistics but the humanity of everyday people in Rwanda. ‘Albertine’ won the 2007 APRA Silver Scroll for songwriting.