Isabelle Kabano

Gabriel, aged 10, lives in a comfortable ex-pat neighborhood in Burundi, his ‘small country’. Gabriel is a normal kid, happy, carefree and having adventures with his friends and little sister. Then in 1993, tensions in neighboring Rwanda spill over, threatening his family and his innocence.

Aya, a young Ivorian woman in her early thirties, says no on her wedding day, to everyone’s astonishment. After emigrating to Asia, she works in a tea export shop with Cai, a 45-year-old Chinese man. Aya and Cai fall in love but can their affair survive the turmoil of their past and other people’s prejudices?

Between 500,000 to 800,000 people belonging to the Tutsi minority ethnic group as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa were killed by armed Hutu militias over the course of 100 days between April 7 and July 15, 1994.