Ended on 8/5/2010
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MUGABE AND THE WHITE AFRICAN -
(unrated)
2009 - UK - English/Shona (with English subtitles) - 90 minutes - First Run Features
Directed by: Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson
Featuring: Michael Campbell, Anglea Campbell, Laura Freeth
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showtimes and tickets
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 Michael Campbell is one of the few hundred white farmers left in Zimbabwe since President Robert Mugabe began his violent land seizure program in 2000. Since then the country has descended into chaos, the economy brought to its knees by the reallocation of formerly white-owned farms to ZANU-PF friends and officials with no knowledge, experience or interest in farming. Mike, like hundreds of white farmers before him, has suffered years of multiple land invasions and violence at his farm.
In 2008, Mike, 75 years old and a grandfather - unable to call upon the protection of any Zimbabwean authorities and unable to even rely on the support of his fellow white farmers, all facing the same brutal intimidation - took the unprecedented step of challenging Robert Mugabe before the SADC (South African Development Community) international court, charging him and his government with racial discrimination and of violations of Human Rights.
This film is an intimate account of one family's astonishing bravery in the face of brutality, in a fight to protect their property, their livelihood and their country. The outcome of the court case potentially determining not just the future that lies ahead for Mike and his family, but the future of millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who continue to suffer at the hands of a dictator who, in setting his own countrymen against each other, has demonstrated that he cares only for power.
On the brink of losing everything, Mike and his family (wife Angela, daughter Laura and her husband Ben Freeth) stand united by their courage, their faith and their hope. Mike knows the personal risk to himself and his family that this case brings. Whatever the verdict by the court, this audacious and unprecedented stand may yet cost them their lives.
This is the only documentary feature film to have come out of Zimbabwe in recent years, where a total press ban still exists. Much of the footage was shot covertly. To have been caught filming would have lead to imprisonment. Mugabe and the White African is perhaps the outside world’s only real glimpse of what it is like to live inside Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
"The film serves as a testimony on behalf of all of Mugabe’s victims."
-Sunday Times (UK)
"Splendidly and often lyrically shot, with a marvellously sympathetic, dread-inducing score by Jonny Pilcher, this is one of the most powerful documentaries I have ever seen."
-Daily Mail [UK]
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Users Comments
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| Posted
by : twhite |
Date Added: 1/8/2010 11:55:30 AM  report this post |
to Daniel,
to my knowledge...the US was very silent on Apartheid in South Africa for decades, and only changed its policy after pressure from within the country and abroad. If anything, given the historical tragedies in this country alone, as well as other more recent african tragedies like Rwanda and the civil war in Sierre Leone, it's usually a countless tale of government silence toward 'white on black crime' AND 'Black on Black crime'...both are tragic. The case in Zimbabwe seems rmore are, with the exception of Uganda and Idi Amin. But regardless of what color the crime or its criminals, I think the bigger truth is that our govt decideds to intervene (or not) based on economic and miliatary reasons, not humanitarian ones--which is also tragic.
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| Posted
by : twhite |
Date Added: 1/8/2010 12:13:35 PMreport this post |
in the post below, i meant to write 'The case in zimbabwe seems more 'rare' not 'are' " :-/
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| Posted
by : Daniel |
Date Added: 7/29/2010 10:28:27 AMreport this post |
The shame of this film is that the int'l media and the US gov't in particular have nothing to say about this atrocity. It is as bad as Apartheid but isn't it interesting that the US is as quiet as a church mouse on the subject. White on black crime: Oh horrible. Black on white crime: Not a word of protest. It goes to show you who are the real racists.
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