The filming of Shooting Dogs, the latest film that highlights the generally ignored Genocide in Rwanda, is bringing some negative pressure against BBC Films, one of the funding companies for the film.

According to Guardian Unlimited Film, there are multiple reasons.

The film, which stars Hugh Dancy and John Hurt, tells the story of a massacre at a school, L'Ecole Technique Officielle, during the genocide in 1994. It includes scenes in which machete-wielding Interahamwe militia close in on the building, hacking women and children to death. It was filmed where the atrocity took place, using many local people, including genocide survivors, as extras and members of the crew.

The biggest concern appears to be over the insensitivity of the filming, and the allegations that members of the crew and actors who were involved in the actual atrocities on both sides, were traumatised by seeing these events occur again.

'In Rwanda, if you see a machete being wielded it doesn't matter if it's for a film - it seems real,' said Mary Kayitesi Blewitt, director of the UK-based Rwandan charity Survivors' Fund. 'When the shoot was over, we had to step up trauma counselling. It took some people six months to overcome the anxiety, fear and paranoia.'...

...David Belton, who wrote and produced Shooting Dogs, said that he 'deeply regretted' the incident with the students. 'We took great pains to avoid local people being confronted with the disturbing scenes, and had two trauma counsellors and medical staff on hand.

He goes on to say that the Rwandan Government asked them to shoot the film locally rather than follow the example of Hotel Rwanda and film in South Africa with South African actors and crew.

There are further concerns that the BBC are profiting from the film as well as a possible misrepresentation of actual events.

Having read a very heart rendering book from the onsite Commander of the tiny UN force (Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Romeo Dallaire), I do know that the rest of the world pretty much ignored what was going on and some countries fought hard not to admit that word Genocide. With that in mind I find it surprising that so many people are standing up and criticising a film about the events, a film that is trying to tell people outside Rwanda what happened and a film that is going to the Rwanda to be made.

Were these voices as loud when Hotel Rwanda was made, or any of the other films or books about Rwanda made? Why does this story highlight the BBC when there are two other financiers and two Production Companies involved?

A film made with the blessing of the Rwandan Government, utilising local talent, filmed on location, being premiered in the very city, and is being put on worldwide release should be highlighted for the right reasons. It's telling the West and their Governments what was ignored and how bad it became. After all, could it be as historically inaccurate as Pearl Harbour or other such films?