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Mugabe and the White African (2009)

Director: Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson

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4 reviews

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From Time Out London

The title suggests an intimate meeting of the ruler and the ruled as in ‘The Last King of Scotland’, but Robert Mugabe only appears in news clips in this very local and often suffocating documentary portrait of a disappearing way of life in Zimbabwe, filmed in secret and under threat of violence. The filmmakers spend ample time with one family of white farmers, the Campbells, who are fighting to keep their property in the face of the Zanu PF government’s decision to redistribute land and execute that ruling by force.

The film’s strength lies in its fearless reportage: the filmmakers are present at some extraordinary events, from the arrival of a minister’s son to confiscate the land (and his vitriolic speech about Europeans) to the family’s various and often futile trips to a regional court in Namibia to seek legal help against the proposed confiscation of their property. The sense of violence, real and threatened, is terrifying, although footage of the Campbells’ relatives living in comfort in rural Kent is a sobering reminder that white Africans with some wealth and European links, such as the Campbells, ultimately have more chance of an alternative way of life than the black Zimbabweans who work for them.

Author: Dave Calhoun 2010-01-05 09:16:35

Time Out London Issue 2055: Jan 5-13, 2010

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User reviews of this film

ryutin said...

Posted on Jan 11 2010 12:01 responding to the first comment mugabe s obviously no marxist he implemented the imf programmes like all the other thugs, if he was pro-western they would let him get away with whatever he wanted like the thugs who run angola, eq guinea etc., as for the white farmers their claim to the land is based on the policies of overthrown illegitimate colonial aparteid governments they were right to be evicted but they shouldnt be terrorised

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Bill Gibbons said...

Posted on Jan 07 2010 18:55 I find it ironic that Mugabe regars the white farmers as "colonials" and "Europeans." Yet, the governments of Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zambia have welcomed the farmers, who they recognize as "white Africans" with open arms to develop their agricultural base. Mugabe has smashed the dreams of his own people and proved to the world what he was from the beginning; a mass murdering marxist dictator who only wanted to be king of his own Shona dominated empire.

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Clive Murray said...

Posted on Jan 07 2010 08:43 In his rather patronising aside, your reviewer fails to mention that the Campbell family built the farm out of nothing (they had to take out a mortgage to buy the land) and provided work for 500 black locals, who now find themselves cast aside thanks to a black president. An acknowledgement of the Campbell's courageous stand against a racist bully wouldn't have gone amiss.

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Tum said...

Posted on Nov 13 2009 10:59 I managed to catch Mugabe and the White African at the London Film Festival. It was shocking and moving in equal parts. If you can catch a screening somewhere, I thoroughly recommend you do so. I really hope this is picked up for theatrical distribution. It really deserves to be seen on the big screen.

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