Government property seizure is a tough cinematic sell. If the rules of society have broken down to the point where thugs, corrupt political officials and/or armed militias are forcibly removing people from their homes there are usually even more viscerally terrifying crimes happening in the foreground that are likely to capture public attention. But when the peace treaties have been signed, the news cameras have left and the garbage is getting picked up each week there are still deep wounds that can leave generations of disenfranchised and embittered people whose ancestors have been stripped of their homes, livelihoods and cultural legacies.
Mugabe and the White African centers on Mike Campbell, an Australian-born naturalized citizen of Zimbabwe (and the filmmaker's father-in-law) who has been a farmer in his adopted country since the late 1960s. But for the better part of a decade, Campbell has been embroiled in a legal fight against dictator Robert Mugabe's land reform policies that seized redistributed property from white residents who purchased the land while the last dictator was in power and give it to poor black residents who were long-discriminated against by white politicians.
Read the rest of this review at Greencine.com
I don't know if Mike Campbell was born in Australia but he is no citizen of Zimbabwe. He came to Rhodesia in 1974 as a South African army captain.
He is not the filmmaker's father-in-law but Ben Freeth's father-in-law, Ben is British and came to run one of the commercial farms of the estate. Neither of them is a farmer nor have been farming in Rhodesia since the late 1960s. They have 500 farmers working for them mainly to export fruits to the UK via South Africa.
Campbell is fighting Zimbabwe's land reform policy of redistributing properties from foreigners who acquired large estate during colonialism or, like Mike Campbell, when Rhodesia was ruled by a white supremacist regime.
I suggest you get your facts right before to review this version of Ben Freeth's attempt of telling his story on youtube. Ben is no filmmaker and yet the filmmakers of this "documentary" have just copied what Ben filmed earlier.
Posted by: me.yahoo.com/a/S7xic.Alpd5bM0ZIYI1R.KaJuN4buX69klSDSc0- | January 25, 2011 at 04:25 AM