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Arts Film/Cinema Film review/recommend Zimbabwe is Zimbabwe
Arts Film/Cinema Film review/recommend Zimbabwe is Zimbabwe
| Zimbabwe is Zimbabwe |
| Written by Christian Hofverberg |
| Saturday, 20 June 2009 21:28 |
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Zimbabwe. When you hear the word, you most likely think of the country and you’ll probably think of Robert Mugabe as well. If you see the film Zimbabwe you may still think of the country but you’ll probably think of a woman instead. Kudzai Chimbaira.  Urbanlife provided the Q’s and got the A’s from her after the screening of the film at the 2009 CinemAfrica Film Festival. Urbanlife (UL): You play the leading role, the character Zimbabwe, in the movie Zimbabwe. What does the movie mean to you? Kudzai Chimbaira (KC): The movie means a lot to me. It mirrors exactly what’s happening; it mirrors one of the biggest situations that is really tearing the country apart. So it saddens me and I find it difficult to watch the film again. UL: There has been a debate on how the Swedish media portrays the situation in Zimbabwe. Do you think the media gives a fair view of how things are in the country? KC: I will be honest with you, the situation in Zimbabwe is very bad, and that’s a fact. But the media here in Sweden usually doesn’t have all the background stories to really give a fair view. The problem is that media is either on side A or on side B, which means that the newspapers and TV fail to give the whole perspective of the situation. UL: As an actress from Zimbabwe, and because of your role in this film, you get a lot of questions about situation in the country. How do you feel about that? KC: It depends on the questions I get. Some of the questions are really patronising and ignorant. Like; “Can anyone in Zimbabwe read or write?” or “Does anyone speak English in Zimbabwe?”. They don’t even know that we’re a former British colony! But when people ask me what challenges the country is facing, or what it is doing for itself, I appreciate that. Zimbabwe – the movie The movie itself follows the life of a young woman named Zimbabwe. Her parents dies in aids and she has to take care of her two siblings all by herself. They live in the rural areas of the country. With no options of providing for the three of them they move to their aunt in a city close to the South African border. Her aunt however, is not the kind relative that Zimbabwe hoped for. She is soon pressured by her aunt and persuaded by her cousin to be smuggled into Johannesburg. Zimbabwe doesn’t want to leave her siblings behind but the promise of a better life seems too great to be rejected. She agrees to be smuggled over the border. In Johannesburg she gets a job as a maid but ends up being abused by the father of the family who she works for, all the while the people who got her the job finds numerous excuses to withhold her wages.
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