Lessons from Cinema Mondial Tour (Part 1)

Films are watched by people for diverse reasons a favourite actor  or favourite genre are among the reasons people flock to cinemas.

However from the 19^th of October to the 27^th Lusaka residents were given an opportunity to watch films for a different reason, to think.

So in this quest I attended the Cinema Mondial Tour, a film festival  which showcases  films and documentaries from Africa, the Middle East and even China.

The festival which is jointly funded by the Hubert Bals Fund and the Jan Vrijman Fund had various participating partners in Africa including Cameroon, Burundi, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe among others.

This year Zambia had the good fortune of having a Lusaka International Film Festival (LIFF) hosted by Fresh View Cinemas and organized by a cheerful and extremely talented film maker by the name of Charity Maruta.

 
For Charity the main mission of the festival is to bring extraordinary films to Lusaka.

“Gone are the days of folk tales or oral history films help to tell our history because the world is changing and that is how we get information these days.”

She added that the west already has information thus they are a step ahead yet it was disappointing that very few indigenous Zambians or Africans watched the films.

“As Africans we don’t get information from books and films enough and sometimes as Africans we are too happy with the status quo.”

The film festival screened a total of 24 movies but of course it was hard to watch all of them yet the ones I did attend were profoundly intense and life changing.

Zambia has in the past few years seen a large number of Chinese migrant workers but “Last Train Home” shows the life of migrant workers within China.

Many Chinese migrate from their villages in the countryside to Hong Kong and other big cities the only time the only time they can go home is during the Chinese New Year.

The film tracks a couple who had to leave the country side twenty years ago in hope of a good income in the city who have to fight for space on overcrowded trains.

After their  daughter also runs away to work in the city they have to contend with their life decisions so that she can return to school and not have to spend the rest of her life in a factory.

They do not succeed she ends up working in a club but the film shows that globally poverty is a cycle which needs hard work to break.

Ellen Sirleaf Johnson is an icon of Liberia and a Nobel peace prize recipient and “The Iron Ladies of Liberia” shows why Liberia is a success story now.

The movie follows a fearless Johnsons  reign from her swearing in ceremony to her  100 days in office.

The mark of a true leader is in their honesty, their self sacrifice and integrity and she is a tough woman lacks the arrogance that many male leaders possess.

 “I would rather be honest with the people even if they do not like it because they deserve honesty after all they have been through.” Johnson says after she addresses a rioting crowd.

I walked out of the cinema feeling like I should be President and afterwards (there was complimentary free wine) we talked of how Africa needs more Iron ladies.

The women at the helm in Liberia are fearless and they are gritty if it means the electorate disliking them because of the truth; They still tell it like Africa deserves to hear it.