This award-winning film about love and resistance in the final years of British colonial rule in Zanzibar received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and was Tanzania's second Oscar entry ever (and the first in over two decades) – and now you can watch it on the big screen in the Netherlands! With an introduction by Elisabeth Hesemans, who was involved as an actor trainer in the production of the film, and AAmatters associate Franka van Marrewijk, who lives and works in Dar es Salaam. Synopsis Tug of War: On the coast of the ancient trading port in the ‘Spice Islands’ of the Indian Ocean, under British protectorate and overseen by the Sultan of Oman, Denge, a young Mswahili revolutionary, fights for a free Zanzibar. Denge and his companions import socialist pamphlets and distribute Swahili translations around the island. They stage uprisings in dance halls and clubs from foreigners to demand political independence. Denge dreams of nothing else, until he meets Yasmin. She is a young Indian-Zanzibarian woman in search of her own forbidden freedoms and she didn't expect to be intrigued by Denge's mysteries…

kriterion