Rising From Ashes.
If you're looking for a feelgood "crowd pleaser", you won't do better than this moving and uplifting sports documentary which follows Team Rwanda, a competitive cycling team coached by American cycling legend Jock Boyer, from its beginnings in 2005 through to the London Olympics in 2012.
Passionate narrator Forest Whitaker
sets the scene with the background to the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda in 1994, when about a million Rwandans lost their lives in three months. As Whitaker explains, access to a bicycle during the first 100 days of the genocide could have meant survival.
The story begins in 2005, when Tom Ritchey, racer and one of the original designers of the mountain bike, heads to Rwanda as a volunteer to set up a national cycling team. He convinces a reluctant Jock Boyer, the first American cyclist to race in the Tour de France, to come and compete in the first annual Rwandan Wooden Bike Classic in 2006.
Yes, some competitors were riding wooden bikes. After being beaten by talented young man Adrien Niyonshuti, who goes on to be the star of Team Rwanda, Boyer is convinced to stay, select and coach the national team.
Director T.C Johnstone's documentary takes a traditional approach. We follow the team chronologically as they grow and gain experience racing in South Africa and the United States, and slowly get to know Team Rwanda's five original members - young men who lost family in the genocide, and are determined to rebuild their lives - and Rwanda's reputation -- through cycling.
