Outstanding
cinema at ZIFF
Excellent films and even better
ambience make the festival a memorable experience
By Mary Wright
How to define or explain the charm
of this island, in particular of Stone Town? You can walk along the shore road
in Forodhani, going from the port towards the headquarters of those organising
the ZIFF festival.
On your left: ancient white-painted palaces whence the sultans used to rule, and
mosques and old forts fringed with palm trees; on your right: speeding
minibuses, bicycles, motorbikes and landcruisers; beyond them the quayside where
fishermen are sitting or distributing their catch against the background of the
blue ocean. Into this ocean, daredevil boys are taking mighty dives from the
footpath over the quayside wall.
One feels the influence of an ancient civilisation, its calm and confidence. The
Zanzibaris don’t feel that they have to impress anybody - they are who they are.
It was my first day and I was trying to find out where the Ziff films were being
shown. At last, a large notice about the film screenings appeared before me,
near the entrance of the huge white museum, known as the House of Wonders, which
was once a palace.
I went through the iron gate, up stone steps and through the doorway, where sat
a veiled young lady (most Zanzibari women are veiled) at a desk. To my question
about the film screenings she replied that I must go out again and then turn to
the right. Rather surprised, because of the notice, I went out through door and
gateway, turned to the right and reached another old edifice. Here a notice
asked me to refrain from taking my bicycle inside and to wipe my feet.
I obeyed both these injunctions and stepped in – and stepped out again quickly,
I was in a mosque. Back to the museum. This time I saw other people passing and
realised one had to turn right around the building to a side door. This was the
projection room.
Over four and a half days I saw 21 films, including five short ones, two
interrupted by mosquitoes and one cut off by power failure. All were of high
quality in their production and all had something to say…Some of them took
rather a long time saying it, in many different ways! This was true, for
instance, of documentary films such as “Forget Baghdad”, composed of many
interviews with Arabic-speaking Jews now in Israel, who had been expelled from
Iraq after three thousand years of residence there, and who felt themselves to
be a kind of Arab minority in Israel.
Similarly, in the film “Speaking Hands” we heard Zakir Hussein expatiating at
some length in many interviews on his experience of playing the tabla, or Indian
drum. However, the film which won the silver award; “Gardiens de la Memoire”,
about the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, although it also consisted mainly of
interviews with survivors, was striking not only because of the subject but also
because of the trauma of the individual speakers. Rwanda again was present in
the film “Gacaca”.
Another excellent film containing many interviews was “Memories of Rain”. It
concerns the lives of two people who had been underground members of the ANC in
South Africa. The picture of their lives was developed from the different topics
treated in these interviews. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for people to
be so honest, as these people were, in talking of themselves. I suppose the
interviewer was deeply sincere and skilful. After the projection was finished,
there was a good discussion between the audience and one of the two filmmakers,
Gisela Albrecht.
The only other filmmaker I met over these festival days was a lady from Kenya,
Sonal Tyagi, who’d made the film “The Ivory Orphans”. Such a beautiful subject
and quite amazing, the process of persuading orphaned baby elephants to adapt
and form a bond first with their human keepers, then, when it was time, with a
group of elephants in Tsavo Game Reserve and get themselves accepted by these.
Again, the short film about the lioness who adopted an oryx calf (inspiring
local Christians to believe that God was about to return) was both beautiful and
tragic (“Heart of a Lioness”, Kenya).
Indeed, all the short films I saw were wonderful, and on the amusing side, one
from Zimbabwe stands out: “Zvinho Zvacho Izvi”, a domestic scandal starring the
oh-so-handsome youth Tawanda whose charms prove to be the downfall of a recently
widowed neighbour; one of the joys of this story was the delight taken by all
the other neighbours in the gigantic furore produced by misunderstandings
concerning these goings-on.
Across the road from the film screenings were the open-air musical events,
making a joyful noise indeed. Hordes of folk, not just youngsters and certainly
not just tourists, made their way to sit beside the sea and hear these
rampaging, wild musicians…I saw Zanzibari family groups as well as with-it
adolescents as they swarmed around the bands and spread out on the ground and it
sounded as if all were joining in with certain vocal numbers. People drifted
back late at night along the footpath by the quay; not least of the pleasures of
Stone Town is that apparently one is perfectly safe walking about no matter what
hour of day or night.
One criticism I have to make before pursuing the film festival programme, that
the projection hall was inhabited by a multitude of voracious mosquitoes, nor
did Expel smeared on the legs deter those little buggers who were responsible
for my leaving a couple of good films before the end, even the Gold Award winner
“Full of Energy” (Uganda).
With regard to the winning films, I was a bit surprised at the film,”Full of
Energy” (Uganda) judged the best. Though it’s certainly a very entertaining and
well-made production, the stilted English sounded rather artificial to me. For
the Chairman’s Award, “Movin’n Groovin’ in East Africa” was a natural choice,
full of vitality and of living memories.
It’s wonderful that there’s the enthusiasm about film making that impels people
from so many countries to send good films to ZIFF. I wished that I’d arrived at
the beginning of the festival and been able to see more. I just have to talk
about two outstanding entries whose memory remains with me: the Iranian film
“Women’s Prison” and the Senegalese one “Madame Brouette”.
To take the latter, gayer one first, this was a riot of colour and action; all
sorts of mayhem and corruption but also friendship, solidarity, love. It had
already won many prizes and its sequences were superbly put together. As for the
Iranian film, the projection room was packed for it and it’s difficult to
explain the fascination of this story which took place over 17 years.
The long, black garb of the prison staff, with only the face showing, reminded
me irresistibly of the attire of Mother Superior and her attendant nuns. But it
also meant that a lot of the meaning and feeling of this film were conveyed just
by the facial expressions of the young woman prison governor – a face to reckon
with. The face of one who would go to the stake without trembling, absolutely
inflexible. What is the message intended?
Again, part of the interest lies in the fact that one keeps going over the
events of the film in one’s memory to decript this message. That one has to be
cruel to be kind? I think this is something we of the West would do well to take
on board, in its approach to delinquents.
As a total experience this seventh ZIFF festival was marvelous, I just can’t
wait to go again. The setting is primordial. Zanzibaris are relaxed but
courteous. They keep work in its place, which is before 2 p.m. An ideal home for
the international flavour of the Ziff festival.
I appeal to the festival promoters to put out more publicity in future. I’d
never heard of ZIFF until my boss said “Oh, you must go!”, and I agree, one
surely did have to go, and to return.