Elsa in Goma is an adaptation of a novel I wrote for teenagers, inspired by my own experience. Freshly graduated from journalism school, I started working in Goma a few weeks after the genocide in Rwanda. The film addresses a chapter of my country’s history, that of the French involvement in the Rwandan genocide. A subject still taboo to this day, despite the mass of books, documents, and reports that exist on the topic. A couple of fiction films have approached the question from other angles; never head-on and never from the fresh perspective of a girl just turned 18, ready to conquer the world. Elsa is at an age where she has to make choices and these experiences will decide the course of her life. She loses her naivety and understands that a handful of fellow citizens, a clan at the head of the French State, installed a secret diplomacy of their own. They helped a fanatic African regime to maintain power at the cost of genocide, and then helped the regime leaders to flee after being overthrown. The film, while dealing with awareness rising, passion and commitment, is ultimately about memory and transmission, about the contrast between the official version of history, as conveyed by the elder generation to the youngest, and the complex reality.