Women of the screen brought to the fore

Kundisai Sande desperately wants to get married. She is HIV positive. When her boyfriend, Teri, deserts her, she is forced into a sexual network with disastrous consequences. The lure of seduction and materialism leads Mahachi, a promiscuous businessman, into seducing HIV into his marital home. Whether bound by sexual temptations or looking for love or a man to buy a wedding dress, Kundisai’s true love for Teri triumphs.
This Zimbabwean 2009 feature film, I Want A Wedding Dress, directed by Tsitsi Dangarembga, showed at the Mini Film Festival in Kampala at the WBS Theatre in Naguru.

The festival
Hosted in different parts of the world, the festival showcased films from the International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF) programme. It oozed into a platform for discussing women’s issues. “Issues of family where women are expected to be caregivers, comforters and mediators, shows women at the fringes of everything. It reflects how society expects women to play supportive roles to men, little part of decision making.” Karen Mukwasi from Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe, says with reference to Two Villages Apart.

In the view of gender inequality, the latter movie displays men as protagonists and women as soothers, suitors and helpers. The women are entangled within the conflict but as the voice of reason. “Women often play antagonist or subservient roles, but movies are more dynamic when we take on protagonist because women are extremely powerful in ways that film can capture,” said Beverly Nambozo, a Poet and founder of Babishai Niwe Leadership Academy for Women and Girls in Africa.
The Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe and the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa (ICAPA) sponsored the festival.

The films, including award-winning Imbabazi: The Pardon, directed by Joel Karekezi, are some of the Best African Films from 2014. These received positive feedback from Kenya, Malawi, and Somalia. Uganda’s critiques were equally impressed.
Shot in Uganda, Imbabazi follows two inseparable friends, Manzi and Karemera, who is imprisoned after their relationship is wrecked by forces of Rwanda’s ethnic violence.

The stories approach different dynamics such as a cricket player who, when diagnosed with an incurable illness, leaves the city to settle in his home village, where he discovers his favourite sport is unpopular. Set out to coach cricket, he is counter-faced with conflict over political rivalry among the youth, and falls in love with a girl, whose O’Level results have been compromised by the political process.
Cocktail and canapés closed the night, allowing film makers, critiques and media talk about prospects to better Uganda’s film industry.

Discussants
The panel of discussants after the showcases, included award-winning writer and stage director Angella Emurwon, Writivism’s Mohamed Naeemah and Mukwasi from Zimbabwe.

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