Zimbabwean election film makes waves

Danish director Camilla Nielsson’s documentary, President, follows the election travails of Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC and its leader, Nelson Chamisa. Winner of the prestigious Sundance Film Festival’s Special Jury Award for Verité Filmmaking, the film deploys an ‘in the moment’ technique as it follows the lead-up to the 2018 general elections. In a News24 review, David Moore notes that it documents Chamisa’s battle against the governing Zanu-PF party leader and acting Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa. ‘Mnangagwa ousted Zimbabwe’s 37-year ruler Robert Mugabe in 2017. 'If you have lingering hopes that the Zanu-PF soldiers’ coup replacing the doddering nonagenerian would leave Mugabe’s legacy behind, settle down for an intense viewing. Your hopes will crash, with the opposition troops that President follows. They will die, shot down as brutally as the six demonstrators – and bystanders – displaying their anger at the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s delayed election tallies. But perhaps enough Zimbabwean politics-watchers in southern Africa can move the discussion beyond the liberal good vs evil platitudes repeated by the film’s reviewers to date.’ Legalbrief reports that President opened the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival in Johannesburg last week and is playing in select SA cinemas until 21 June.