Cinema as Foreign Exchange
Channel: Large Door
Date: 09/06/2020

This 1984 Channel 4 documentary by Simon Hartog shows how cinema has been used very differently in three neighbouring African states with different colonial heritages: Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Madagascar. Mozambique used cinema newsreels as a crucial propaganda tool after the Portugese colonisers left. Madagascar boycotted US movies, so its screens were dominated by French, Indian and Hong Kong films instead. But a few films managed to get made. The situation in Zimbabwe was the worst, except that alone of the three countries it possessed an efficient film laboratory.