PIO film on Tanzania independence |
An Indian-origin Tanzanian filmmaker Amil Shivji who grew up watching Bollywood movies has released the East African nation`s first-ever adaptation of a Swahili literary work about Tanzania`s struggle for freedom from the British colonial rule. The film titled “Tug of War” is part of the official selection at the 46th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) that began on September 9. The film is adapted from a famous novel of the same name by celebrated Tanzanian writer Adam Shafi. It is a love story of a young revolutionary and an Indian-origin runaway bride set in the backdrop of the resistance movement in Zanzibar in the 1950s. Shot in Zanzibar, an autonomous archipelago in the Indian Ocean lying close to mainland Tanzania, “Tug of War” is the second feature film of Shivji, a fourth-generation Tanzanian, whose ancestors first arrived from Porbandar, Gujarat. The film, part of the Discovery program of the Toronto festival, had its world premiere on September 13 in Canada`s business capital that boasts of a large South Asian diaspora. In adapting a Swahili novel, Shivji attempts to reclaim and retell the history of the freedom struggle from the people`s point of view. Tanzania gained independence from the British in 1961. Shivji, who grew up in the Tanzanian capital Dar-es-Salaam, says that Zanzibar was the biggest market for Hindi cinema outside India in the second half of the last century. Bollywood still plays a big role in the culture of the island, which has a very strong Indian community. Notably, Gujarati is one of the four official languages.
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