Shake Hands with the Devil (2007 film)
Shake Hands with the Devil is a 2007 Canadian biographical war drama about Roméo Dallaire, the UN general who led peacekeeping forces during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Roy Dupuis stars as Dallaire, and the film is adapted from Dallaire’s memoir Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. It follows Dallaire’s harrowing efforts to stop the killings and his urgent pleas for more help that the United Nations largely ignores.
The movie was directed by Roger Spottiswoode and produced as a collaboration between Barna-Alper Productions and Halifax Film Company. It was filmed on location in Kigali, Rwanda, and in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with principal photography in mid-2006. Shake Hands with the Devil premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in August 2007 and opened in Canada on September 28, 2007. The film runs 113 minutes and had a budget of about 11 million Canadian dollars.
The project received significant attention from critics and earned twelve Genie Award nominations, tying for the most nominations that year. The reception was mixed, with praise for its serious portrayal of a difficult, real-life crisis and criticism of some aspects of the storytelling.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 09:01 (CET).