Set against the backdrop of the 100-day Rwandan genocide, this harrowing drama cuts back and forth between two time sequences. One unfolds as a flashback, prior to the genocide, when journalist Bernard Valcourt meets waitress Gentille at the HÒotel des Mille Collines and falls deeply in love with her. The present sequence unfolds after the holocaust, when Bernard returns to the country alone, after he and Gentille have been separated by Rwandan bureaucracy.