Documentaries which uphold the official historical media memory of the Rwandan genocide are plentiful. A majority of these films constitute a continuation of the three nominal feature films—Ghosts of Rwanda, Rwanda: Do Scars Ever Fade?, and Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire—for example, the French film Kill Them All! Rwanda: The Story of an Unimportant Genocide from 2004 which focuses on the French involvement in the genocide and uses an abundance of emblematic images, especially “The Nick Hughes Footage” and “Corpses by the Road,” that repeatedly are employed to explain the inexplicable violence with images of violence.

It is also Kill Them All!, together with the documentary version of Shake Hands with the Devil, which familiarizes audiences with the eighth emblematic image of the genocide, “Skeletons and Clothes,” in which footage of decomposed bodies turned into skeletons, often with their clothes still on, and filmed at the end of the genocide, testifies to the grim consequences of the genocide against the Tutsi. An often-used variant of “Skeletons and Clothes” consists of newly taken footage of preserved bones, skulls, and clothes displayed at one of the six official genocide memorials in Rwanda. Hence, this footage lacks a sense of now-ness that the other seven emblematic images exhibit. Therefore, this footage has more of an archival function—especially the newly taken footage—of silent artifacts that are used to promote an educational never-again-memory, according to British anthropologist Pat Caplan. In other words, in cinematic history, the use of the eighth emblematic image signals that the genocide is over, while, in comparison, the other seven emblematic images have a sense of urgency to them. When employed in the official historical media memory, these seven images promote the failure of the Western powers in Rwanda in an active sense—we must do something—while the eighth image is able to perform several functions, such as archival, educational, promotional, and nation-building, as we will see further on.