Not only is she white, a woman and British, her film undermines Zimababwe's official history books. Flame is about women guerrillas and their disillusioning experiences in the liberation war. And the controversy has gone right to the top of the Harare hierarchy. Sinclair and her team have been accused of destabilising President Robert Mugabe by challenging accounts of the independence war - which is the basis of his government's legitimacy.
Flame explores the power relationships between men and women in the military.
Many of the men are contemptuous of the women's idealistic desire to fight as equals, and physically and emotionally abusive toward them. In one pivotal scene, a young woman fighter is raped by her glamorous commander, Comrade Danger. Flame tells the story of two young girls, Florence and Nyasha, who journey from a village harassed by Rhodesian security forces to the guerrilla camps in Mozambique where they become Flame and Liberty. Flame has a baby she loses in a Rhodesian bombing raid, a loss that pushes her into becoming a famously reckless guerrilla leader. The film shows the sourness of her post-independence marriage and disillusioned return to the village.