IN Zimbabwe, filmmaking can be traced to the colonial initiatives with the establishment of the Colonial Film Unit at the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, as part of a propaganda initiative directed at colonies.
Under the direction of the Ministry of Information, the purpose of the Colonial Film Unit was to explain British participation in the war to subjects in the colonies and thus enlist their support.
After the end of the Second World War, in 1946, film became part of their initiative for the development of the colonies.
Funded by the Colonial Development and Welfare Act (1940) and successive acts, film activities changed from war propaganda to development issues of adult education in the British colonies.
Aware that the power of cinema as an instrument for persuasion could never be underestimated, the British authorities harnessed the experiences gained during the war to develop the colonies through the use of film as an educational tool.
Four production units were established, partially funded by the British Government and controlled by the British Colonial Film Unit in East and West Africa as well as the Central African Film Unit (CAFU) to cover Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi respectively).
With the formation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953, a fragile coalition of white interests whose legitimacy was undermined by African resistance, the CAFU became a part of the Federal Department of Information of the Federal Government, producing films that promoted the territory and encouraged white settler-immigration, until 1963, when the dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, (now independent Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi) was concluded.
The primary goal of the colonial Government was to maintain white standards and privileges while promoting limited African development. Thus the production of films for indigenous audiences was ‘to civilise the Africans’, and was informed by a number of erroneous myopic assumptions.
Filmmaking by the CAFU was premised as follows: “The goal was to make educational films that were presented in an entertaining way, with strong moral messages. Adult Africans were to be protected from unwholesome messages, in other words the production of films ‘affording healthy entertainment’.”
In 1950, the ‘civilising development’ was construed in terms of relationships between two races that were at different historical points of evolution, with no prospect of equality in the near future.
Beyond the difficulty of creating wholesome messages, films were to inculcate in the indigenous audiences the necessity for, and the value of, hard work, of self-help – “Doing things for themselves without payment instead of doing them only if the Government is willing to pay for them.”
However, in an environment where economic relations were unequal and forced labour (chibharo), was an historical reality for indigenous Africans, these values were for the benefit of white controlled capitalist enterprise.
The agricultural films that were made to promote good farming methods and prosperity were in contrast to the Rhodesian Government’s land tenure policies, agricultural production and marketing policies that blatantly discriminated against our people.
The civilising mission of colonial filmmakers, however, did not stand the test of time.
CAFU grossly underrated their audience, who, after the novelty had worn off, were able to evaluate them against their own lived experience and political aspirations and soon began to raise questions about the messages to which they were exposed and how those messages related to their own economic and political aspirations.
After the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965, the uneasy relations between filmmakers and audiences became antagonistic in Zimbabwe when the illegal regime of Ian Smith unleashed a vigorous propaganda campaign against the indigenous majority in their attempt to thwart their aspirations for self-rule.
The antagonism rapidly escalated when in December 1972, the liberation war cadres launched an attack on Altena Farm in the north-east of Zimbabwe, which intensified both the War of Liberation and the regime’s propaganda machine, which began to spew malicious lies regarding our fighters.
Soon, Ian Smith’s Government unleashed a major media propaganda war; a new brand of war propaganda films were commissioned and shown in the war zones in rural areas in order to undermine the support for the guerilla armies in the rural communities.
From 1973 to 1980, control and production of film fell under the Rhodesian Ministry of Information which produced the Rhodesian propaganda war films.
Though the films were directed to both indigenous and white audiences, those films directed to African audiences, particularly ‘war films’, sought to win the hearts and minds of the people and undermine the support of rural communities for the guerilla armies, challenging white rule at the time.
Mobile film units were also deployed at the time to show films in the war zones.
A film entitled War on Terror showed a Rhodesian Army soldier tracking ‘terrorist spoor’ after a ‘contact’. A close-up camera shot shows a dead guerilla. Two Rhodesian soldiers are shown approaching a village and setting the homestead on fire.
The aim of such films was to undermine the rural support for guerilla armies through terror tactics that instilled fear in the villagers.
Ironically though, such barbaric depiction left the local population more determined to support the guerilla war against an (Rhodesian) army perceived to be killing their sons and daughters.
Another widely used untitled propaganda film which came to be known locally as the Hyena film, opened with shots of three insurgents entering a village where they were fed and given shelter. As the story unfolded, footage was shown as the guerillas were tracked and shot dead. The villagers who assisted them were arrested.
In the most horrific scene, the camera shows a hyena on leash rolling itself upon three real human bodies which are badly mutilated, licking up the brains of one body, ripping open another to pull out and eat entrails.
The film that left audiences stunned, and some of them sick, ended with the sound of hyenas laughing.
There is no evidence that these horrific war films succeeded in undermining the people’s support for the liberation war; in actual fact, as the war escalated, support for the guerillas intensified, that by 1979, Smith’s regime was forced to concede that it was losing both the military conflict and the struggle for ‘hearts and minds’ of the Zimbabwean population.
Just before independence in 1980, the Rhodesian Government is known to have destroyed some of the film stock used during their unsuccessful propaganda offensive.
In 1980, with the attainment of independence came the promise of a new and exciting era in the development of the Zimbabwean film industry. But Zimbabwe today is faced with a new propaganda schema in filmmaking; that of the NGO’s ‘rights-based approach to development’ agenda.
Over the years filmmaking has been sponsored by NGOs whose agendas embrace their own Western political and ideological ethos.
One of their goals is to raise consciousness for the mobilisation of the people for civil action.
Perhaps it is time we created our own movies, which would rectify both the racist colonial narrative and the current NGO Western-biased agendas.
Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) and Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, lecturer, musician, art critic, practicing artist and Corporate Image Consultant. He is also a specialist Art Consultant, Post-Colonial Scholar, Zimbabwean Socio-Economic analyst and researcher. E-mail: tonym.MONDA@gmail.com