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Like any courtroom drama, the documentary "The Undocumented" finds its power not in the lawyers' maneuvers but in the testimony of the victims at the heart of the crime.

Directors Michele Mitchell and Nick Louver (who died last year, two weeks before the film's premiere) chronicle the efforts by prosecutors and investigators for the International Criminal Court to build a case over the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Their first prosecution involved a village mayor implicated not just in murder, but in the systematic rape of women — a crime never included in a genocide prosecution before.

The legal angle is interesting, if a bit dry, until the filmmakers play their ace: the testimony of three women who experienced it all firsthand. Their stories, which they retell with unadorned dignity, turn this otherwise ordinary documentary into something inspiring.

'The Uncondemned'

Opening Friday, Nov. 18, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; not rated, but probably PG-13 for violent images and descriptions of sexual violence; 87 minutes.