Kigali, Rwanda: It's more red tape than red carpet as the feature Shake Hands with the Devil shoots on location in this once-bloody African nation.

The $10-million production dramatizing the 100 days of the 1994 Rwandan genocide - as seen through the eyes of retired Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire - first had to contend with 400,000 pounds of production gear being shipped from Canada, including eight cameras for two units, which got held up in customs for a month.

As well, with Rwanda lacking a car-rental outlet, vehicles had to be hired from private owners.

Then there were sets that had to be built with machetes and handsaws after power tools, ladders and even paintbrushes were found to be in short supply.

"It's like building sets 200 years ago," sighs production designer Lindsey Hermer-Bell.

Then, midway through the 30-day shoot, production was halted in downtown Kigali after a senior intelligence officer in the office of Rwandan President Paul Kagame rang through with security concerns.

Nervous mandarins in the Chinese Embassy - in front of which director Roger Spottiswoode was shooting a scene in which Dallaire, played by Roy Dupuis (Maurice Richard), and an aide come upon a roadblock manned by angry, drunken militiamen - were thought to be the original source of the complaint.

"We've had a tank parked outside the Chinese Embassy all morning," coproducer Laszlo Barna says ruefully, surveying a scene of burnt-out cars and army trucks.

With permit in hand and patience running out, Barna tells his team of local fixers to get the shut-down order lifted, while around him actors playing soldiers in UN battledress and Hutu militiamen - stamping and shrieking with machetes and clubs in hand - break off rehearsals for the next sequence.

Suddenly, someone warns Barna that the complaining intelligence officer has Kagame's ear.

"I have Kagame's ear, too. We'll see who has the bigger mouth," he responds, and threatens to have himself arrested. The more stoic Spottiswoode next approaches and recommends that the set be shifted down the road.

"We need the police every day," he reminds Barna. "They've been nice to us so far."

Eventually, the film's government liaison strikes a deal with Kigali's assistant inspector of police, Aristaque Murara, who has been on the phone with the president's intelligence office. Murara allows shooting to resume well away from the sightlines of Beijing's diplomats, ending the production delay.

All in a day's shooting in Rwanda, where the African nation is rebuilding after the 1994 murderous rampage of Hutu extremists, and the Canadian producers are dealing with the complications of shooting historical events where they occurred.

"They have their own bureaucratic process, and we've had to stop and understand what that process is," says supervising producer Peter Meyboom. "We've had to be diplomatic and explain to officials what this monstrous machinery rolling through their country is all about."