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.