Mugabe and the White African
Encyclopedia
Mugabe and the White African is a 2009 documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 by Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson. The film documents the lives of a white family who run a farm in Chegutu
Chegutu
Chegutu is a town in the Mashonaland West province, northern Zimbabwe and is 110km southwest of Harare on the main Harare-Bulawayo road . According to the 1992 Population Census, the town had a population of 30,191...

, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

, as they challenge the land redistribution programme
Land reform in Zimbabwe
Land reform in Zimbabwe officially began in 1979 with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement, an effort to more equitably distribute land between the historically disenfranchised blacks and the minority-whites who ruled Zimbabwe from 1890 to 1979...

 that seizes white-owned farms beginning in 2000. The film follows Mike Campbell
Mike Campbell (farmer)
Michael "Mike" Campbell was a white African farmer from the district of Chegutu in Zimbabwe...

, his son-in-law Ben Freeth
Ben Freeth
Benjamin "Ben" Freeth, MBE is a British-born White Zimbabwean farmer and human rights activist from the district of Chegutu in Mashonaland West Province, Zimbabwe. Together with his father-in-law, Mike Campbell, he rose to international prominence after 2008 for suing the regime of Zimbabwean...

, and their family as they challenge Robert Mugabe
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...

 and the Zimbabwean government before the Southern African Development Community
Southern African Development Community
The Southern African Development Community is an inter-governmental organization headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana. Its goal is to further socio-economic cooperation and integration as well as political and security cooperation among 15 southern African states...

 tribunal for racial discrimination and human rights violations. The film premiered in the UK on 21 October 2009 at the London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...

.

Reception

The documentary has garnered considerable critical acclaim. It currently holds a 'fresh' rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

.

Awards and honors

  • Sterling World Feature Award, 2009 SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival
    Silverdocs
    AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival is an American international film festival created by the American Film Institute and Discovery Channel. It is held every year in Silver Spring, Maryland near Washington, D.C.. Started in 2003, the festival is held for eight days in June at...

    .

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK