The Northern Irish writer/director of Oscar-nominated Hotel Rwanda Why make a film about the genocide in Rwanda 10 years ago?

I met Paul Rusesabagina [the Rwandan hotelier who saved more than 1000 Tutsis during the genocide] and heard his story. It was a political drama through which I could explain the genocide. It gives you the ability to take an audience inside an event and then walk them through it, in the manner of The Killing Fields.

Why did you raise the finance yourself?

Nobody in Hollywood would fund it.

I've come to think that there's an institutional racism that says human life is worth less in Africa than elsewhere.

How "real" is the film?

Hardly anything is invented. We made composite characters of some of the white figures, and we changed some of the chronology, nothing more.

What couldn't you include?

There's actual footage of a group of Tutsis being hacked to death by Hutus taken by a news cameraman - the character played by Joaquin Phoenix - that I was going to show, but I was afraid it would turn Hotel Rwanda into a snuff movie, so we re-shot it.

What are the after-effects?

We've been campaigning across the US, in partnership with Amnesty. I've screened Hotel Rwanda at the State Department and at the UN. Paul went to the White House to discuss Darfur with President Bush. We're getting the message through.

You've often tackled Irish politics in your work: what drew you to Africa?

The tribal division between the Tutsi and the Hutu was really economic - where the divide-and-rule coloniser says to one community that the other community is going to steal their land and their livelihood.

How important are the film's three Oscar nominations?

Hugely important. It's the only way to crossover from the arthouse circuit.

The Oscars, tonight, Sky One, 1.15am