{"id":1502,"date":"2021-06-13T05:36:24","date_gmt":"2021-06-13T05:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2022-01-04T05:38:56","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T05:38:56","slug":"a-new-film-about-zimbabwes-2018-elections-is-worth-watching-but-flawed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/1502\/a-new-film-about-zimbabwes-2018-elections-is-worth-watching-but-flawed\/","title":{"rendered":"A new film about Zimbabwe\u2019s 2018 elections is worth watching, but flawed"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0David B. Moore<\/a>*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danish director\u00a0Camilla Nielsson<\/a>\u2019s documentary\u00a0President<\/a>\u00a0(2021)<\/em>\u00a0is an up-close, intimate tale. It follows the election travails of Zimbabwe\u2019s main\u00a0opposition party<\/a>\u00a0the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance and its leader,\u00a0Nelson Chamisa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Winner of the prestigious Sundance Film Festival\u2019s Special Jury\u00a0Award<\/a>\u00a0for Verit\u00e9 Filmmaking, the film deploys an \u201cin the moment\u201d technique as it follows the lead-up to the 2018\u00a0general elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It documents Chamisa\u2019s\u00a0battle<\/a>\u00a0against the governing Zanu-PF party leader and acting Zimbabwean president\u00a0Emmerson Mnangagwa<\/a>. Mnangagwa ousted Zimbabwe\u2019s 37-year ruler\u00a0Robert Mugabe<\/a>\u00a0in 2017. As the film\u2019s promotional material explains:<\/p>\n

As the election looms closer, it becomes increasingly clear that \u2026 an election is no guarantee of a democratic outcome.<\/p>\n

If you have lingering hopes that the Zanu-PF soldiers\u2019 coup replacing the doddering nonagenerian would leave\u00a0Mugabe\u2019s legacy<\/a>\u00a0behind, settle down for an intense viewing.<\/p>\n

Your hopes will crash, with the opposition troops that\u00a0President\u00a0follows. They will die, shot down as brutally as the six demonstrators \u2013 and bystanders \u2013 displaying their anger at the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission\u2019s delayed\u00a0election tallies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But perhaps enough Zimbabwean politics-watchers in southern Africa can move the discussion beyond the liberal\u00a0good vs evil<\/a>\u00a0platitudes<\/a>\u00a0repeated by the film\u2019s reviewers to date. A local audience should offer critical and nuanced views.<\/p>\n

Political thriller?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Fulbright graduate of visual anthropology and filmmaking at New York University, director Nielsson has several socially conscious films under her belt, often about the plight of children, in\u00a0Afghanistan<\/a>,\u00a0Darfur<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0India<\/a>. Her\u00a0famed<\/a>\u00a0documentary\u00a0Democrats<\/a>\u00a0(2014) covered Zimbabwe\u2019s 2010-2013 constitution-making excursion.<\/p>\n

President\u00a0avoids feeding the audience a lot of background history and politics. Nielsson\u00a0says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We \u2026 try to be there when things happen, instead of telling it all backwards and coming up with some sort of analysis.<\/p>\n

The film is sold as a political thriller. But as Eric Kohn \u2013 perhaps the sole, though mild, critical voice \u2013\u00a0writes<\/a>: the long meetings with Chamisa and company debating how to beat the unbeatable are \u201cless thrilling than exhaustive, a kind of informational activism in feature form\u201d.<\/p>\n

Maybe 45 wasted minutes covering meetings could have been used to fill in some glaring gaps that local audiences will notice.<\/p>\n

Classic documentary moments<\/strong><\/p>\n

One such moment might have followed the (unnamed) academic\u00a0Phillan Zamchiya<\/a>. (The film does not identify enough of its characters.) In a hotel room, Chamisa\u2019s lawyerly team debates the next steps. It becomes starkly apparent that this election will go down the drain too.<\/p>\n

The camera catches Zamchiya from behind. No polite critic, he\u00a0argues<\/a>\u00a0that Zanu-PF are military. They are guerrillas, he says:<\/p>\n

If people are not prepared to die, to go to prison \u2026 you are not going to take power away from this regime, believe me or not.<\/p>\n

He might have qualified that Zanu-PF is especially so after the coup, when the pro-Mugabe \u2018intelligentsia\u2019 faction was dumped.<\/p>\n

Once a student leader severely battered during the early struggles for Zimbabwe\u2019s democracy \u2013 as is true for Chamisa, the film shows \u2013 Zamchiya knows of what he speaks.<\/p>\n

The tortured polling agents filing affidavits about their beatings as they posted ballot reports speak eloquently of that plight. However, the film is silent about how ill-prepared they were for their crucial task. The deceased 1 August demonstrators, angry at the deliberately slow counting of the vote, speak for their last time. The timid\u00a0commission of inquiry<\/a>\u00a0into their deaths muted them further.<\/p>\n

President\u2019s filming of those moments is classic. It\u2019s clear why a good documentary can beat the stills. Watch very closely as the officer claps the back of the soldier who shot at the dispersing crowd.<\/p>\n

Yet Zamchiya\u2019s challenge, if pursued, could have raised more questions of the film\u2019s unfolding events.<\/p>\n

Ignored issues<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like what other forces shaped this moment? During\u00a0Rhodesia<\/a>\u2019s white rule the liberation armies\u2019 military pressure forced the racist regime to the\u00a0negotiating table<\/a>. This would not have happened without the West because of the\u00a0Cold War<\/a>. But the West\u2019s post-1989 enthusiasm for democracy-lite\u00a0waned<\/a>. By 2017 it seemed the once opposition-friendly Brits were\u00a0backing<\/a>\u00a0the sluggish thug Emmerson Mnangagwa who took over the country.<\/p>\n

Or the context of how the original opposition\u2019s\u00a0trade union<\/a>\u00a0roots disappeared due to devastating de-industrialisation after the fast track land reform started in the early 2000s \u2013 leading to the opposition party\u2019s takeover by lawyers and neo-liberal fantasies.<\/p>\n

Lawyers do argue well.\u00a0Thabani Mpofu<\/a>\u2019s valiant, expertly filmed, attempts at the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe to challenge the vote counting amounted to nothing in the end. It was pleasurable, though, to watch electoral commission bosses and judges trying not to squirm.<\/p>\n

But those who adored Nielsson\u2019s previous film\u00a0Democrats\u00a0and its hero, the lawyer Douglas Mwonzora, will know that he has become a leader of a splinter opposition faction\u00a0allegedly<\/a>\u00a0working with Zanu-PF. They will wonder how long this move brewed.<\/p>\n

The Movement for Democratic Change\u2019s earlier splits, patched up in the alliance only as elections approached, are ignored too. So too Chamisa\u2019s rapid and contested\u00a0moves<\/a>\u00a0to the top of the party after former opposition leader\u00a0Morgan Tsvangirai<\/a>\u00a0died.<\/p>\n

Those 45 minutes could have offered much more meaning. Aside from avoiding Chamisa\u2019s\u00a0religious side<\/a>\u00a0President\u00a0could have screened its footage of Chamisa\u2019s press conference in the wake of Zanu-PF\u2019s chaotic\u00a0coup consolidator<\/a>, as 2019 began.<\/p>\n

Dead: at least 17 demonstrators and bystanders. Raped: the same number. Meanwhile, Zanu-PF \u2018youth\u2019 set the opposition headquarters alight. The charred walls said it all. They would answer the question of why Chamisa\u2019s pursuit of free and fair elections will not go far in 2023, but also why there are no other choices.<\/p>\n

President<\/em>\u00a0zooms in on the moment at the cost of the big picture. Zooming out could have helped.<\/p>\n

\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640\u0640<\/span><\/p>\n

* Fellow, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge; Professor of Development Studies, University of Johannesburg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0David B. Moore* Danish director\u00a0Camilla Nielsson\u2019s documentary\u00a0President\u00a0(2021)\u00a0is an up-close, intimate tale. It follows the election travails of Zimbabwe\u2019s main\u00a0opposition party\u00a0the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance and its leader,\u00a0Nelson Chamisa. Winner of the prestigious Sundance Film Festival\u2019s Special Jury\u00a0Award\u00a0for Verit\u00e9 Filmmaking, the film deploys an \u201cin the moment\u201d technique as it follows the lead-up to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"The Conversation","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-southern-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}