Truly ‘A Season of Visions’
There was an ‘undeniable optimism’ and sense of hope at this year’s ZIFF, writes Kari Dahlgren, as the creativity and dialogue the film festival sparked provide a source of ‘unity and strength to both imagine and bring forth global social and economic justice.’
As the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF) finishes another year, is it positive to look back and reflect on this year’s festivities. The 14th ZIFF was by all accounts a fantastic success, and congratulations and thanks are due to the festival’s organisers and staff. The impact of the past festivals was clearly seen in the impressive work by African filmmakers, whose works represented the immense talent and creativity of the continent.
This year’s theme ‘A Season of Visions’, intended to invoke human creativity and problem-solving capabilities, brought to the festival an undeniable optimism.
ZIFF represents an important forum for cultural production and self-representation in the continent. Rather than Hollywood produced images of Africa, primarily still representing colonial nostalgia or the dark continent, the films of ZIFF embraced authentic self-representation that clearly reflect the vibrancy, complexities, and possibilities of the continent, and are themselves a sign of hope for African social and political justice. This is not to say that the films ignored the seriousness of the present challenges, rather the festival approached contemporary issues and conflicts, neither trivialising them nor presenting them as insoluble. The optimism of the festival was evident, a trend that is seen in two of the year’s most popular films to premiere at this year’s ZIFF.
In the new documentary film by Javed Jafferji, ‘Journey to the State House’, the audience is presented with the struggles of establishing multiparty democracy in Zanzibar, through tracing the political journey of opposition party, Civic United Front (CUF), leader Maalim Seif Shariff Hamad. While recognising the contested and violent elections of the last decades, the film presents the success of the most recent 2010 election and power sharing agreement between majority party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) as a movement towards peaceful democracy in Zanzibar, an optimism reinforced by the audience’s animation.
The winner of the Swahili Best Feature Film, ‘A Ray of Hope’, tells the story of a young woman’s struggle under the stigmatisation and discrimination faced by those infected with HIV. Yet through her struggle she finds empowerment, standing up to discrimination and regaining the respect of her community, an ending that again sent the audience into thunderous applause.
The transformative power of the film medium was also strengthened by ZIFF’s promotion of dialogue and discussion. Events such as the Women’s Panorama and the Children and Film Panorama followed film screenings with facilitated discussion, bringing enhanced relevance and power to the films and again representing the festival’s goals of promoting film as a medium for social change through provoking dialogue and engagement.
The expansion of African filmmaking offers enormous potential for authentic self-representation for local audiences; yet as it grows and spreads beyond the continent, it offers potential in exposing international audiences to authentic African images and realities.
ZIFF plays a substantial role in nurturing African cultural production. Through various workshops, ZIFF encourages the sharing of technical skills and resources to enable filmmakers to bring their stories to life. This year’s festival included a five day HD camera workshop with cinematographer Barry Braverman, documentary directing and producing classes, as well as a documentary pitching contest, in which filmmakers worked to develop, under the mentorship of seasoned professionals, their documentary ideas and then pitching their ideas to broadcasters and producers.
Through fostering the creativity of African artists, ZIFF presents a forum for self-representation and internal dialogue. In the production of authentic images of Africa, art is imbibed with an optimistic view of the future, without ignoring the complexities and challenges facing the continent. The ‘Season of Visions’ highlighted this gaze towards a bright future, for evident in the immense creativity displayed by the festival’s artists, it is not only their films that are imbibed with hope, but in this creativity and the dialogue it provokes, we are to find the unity and strength to both imagine and bring forth global social and economic justice.
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* Kari Dahlgren is a student of anthropology and African studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and is currently conducting research in Zanzibar.
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