To Jim Sheridan, the Oscar-nominated drama “Hotel Rwanda,” directed by his friend and frequent collaborator Terry George, is essentially an Irish story. The setting is, of course, in a different continent and the skin color not quite so pasty white, but the premise and tragic events depicted are straight out of an Irish history book.

“It’s the same story: It’s a civil war which has been left behind by an oppressive colonial government,” Sheridan says. And the theme of violent, internal strife, he adds, is irresistible to Irish filmmakers, because they can intimately relate: “We are caught in that (mentality) of being part of that colonial structure and understanding how that works in the rest of the world.”

Links