June 15, 2022 4:31 pm
Four women and their painful and violent stories, but also marked by courage and hope. From Dar es Salaam, the economic capital of Tanzania on the Indian Ocean, they speak to the world thanks to a film, Binti, which in Swahili means “girl”. And girls are the screenwriter, the director and the producers. Applaud in Los Angeles in the United States, in Lagos in Nigeria or in Johannesburg in South Africa; awarded at the Zanzibar International Film Festival and able to take their place in the catalog of the international streaming platform Netflix: a first for a work made in Tanzania.
“The four protagonists are called Tumaini, Angel, Stella and Rose and they could live anywhere in the world, in Kenya, in Europe or in Hong Kong”, says Alex Temu, the actor who plays perhaps the only male character you are looking for. to understand his partner. “The problem that emerges in all the stories, which concerns women and which also reveals men, is precisely the lack of communication”. We meet Temu in an organic bakery with glass cases among jacaranda trees not far from the Peninsula, the trendy district of Dar es Salaam. Sitting next to him is Angela Ruhinda, 33, who together with her sister Alinda is the founder of the production company of Binti. “All female”, she specifies. “It’s called Black Unicorn Studios because it wants to be as awesome as the black unicorn.”
The stories in the film, on the other hand, are real life. Abandoned by her father and extinguished by her racketeering, Tumaini does all she can to avoid having to close her shop. Angel is also a victim of abuse and violence, finally realizing that with her boyfriend it will never work. Stella is wealthy and has a partner who tries to love her but who cannot satisfy her desire for a child. Rose, on the other hand, has a son: he is suffering from cognitive disability and his father continues to ignore him, because he does not want to take any responsibility.
“At first we thought we would title the film Her life, her life, because it shows real challenges that so many women face every day ”, says Angela Ruhinda. “The stories are interclass, because they concern people from both the working class and the middle class; they reveal a generational gap between daughters and their mothers, custodians of wisdom in a country where the average age is 18; they show the physical or psychological abuses that affect so many girls, who therefore see themselves as the protagonists ”.
Binti it premiered on March 8, 2021 as “a love letter to all women” at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles. Today in Tanzania it is a success and a point of pride. “It is directed by Seko Shamte and based on the first screenplay by Maria Shoo, who at the age of 26 in 2018 won our first competition Made in Africa, open to stories about women’s rights ”, explains Angela Ruhinda. “By the end of the year we will organize a second edition: there is a lot of talent here, even if unfortunately there is a lack of equipment, resources and above all training schools”.
Cinema truth
The story of the Black Unicorn founders is a confirmation of this. She was the daughter of diplomats, Angela Ruhinda was born in Canada and returned to Dar es Salaam in 2016, after studying in Kenya, the United Kingdom and finally five years in the United States, where she attended the New York Film Academy. Among her contacts is Okada Media, a distribution house that since 2013 has been organizing a festival in Paris dedicated to new Nollywood talents, as the film industry of Nigeria is known throughout the world. On the Okada Media website, which fostered the agreement between Black Unicorn and Netflix, she refers to the mission of “promoting quality African content, which should be considered the norm rather than the exception”.
According to Angela Ruhinda, things could also change for Tanzania. And for this reason, one of her projects is the opening of a screenwriting and film school in Dar es Salaam. We also talk about it with Alex Temu, another Tanzanian who has toured America and Europe. At the appointment he shows up quite late, but his sympathy wins over in a minute. He is an architect and back in Dar, in addition to being an actor, he works in a studio. We ask them what they think of Binti the men. “I believe”, he replies, “that some would prefer that their family not see him, because he shows their own behaviors of violence and oppression”.
It is almost sunset time. We leave the city center to reach a bar by the ocean. The appointment is with one of the leading actresses, Helen Hartmann. In Binti has the part of Stella, Ben’s partner, the role played by Temu. In the film she can’t get pregnant with assisted fertilization, she suffers and feels anger, but tonight she looks like a star: she has an Italian son, she explains, after greeting us with a “how are you?”. We also talk a little about politics and about Samia Suluhu Hassan, the first female president of Tanzania, who has led the state since the death of John Magufuli, of which she had been the deputy until March 17, 2021. “I believe this is a phase of change “, Smiles Hartmann, returning to other stories, those of every day:” It is important that cinema tells women, so that by seeing themselves, a friend or a relative, they can become more aware “. And it is not true that the relationship with men is always the same: “There are some violent ones but also those who are attentive or perhaps confused; in the end, however, they will have to recognize our value, perhaps also thanks to cinema ”.
Regina Kihwewle nods, who has joined us and is also an actress. In Binti has a minor part, while it is the protagonist in Mulasi and in Dodoma, a film that has just finished shooting. The director of both works, called Honeymoon Aljabri, participates in the conversation. She is 47 years old, with a Tanzanian mother, a Yemeni father and a life in the United States. She returned to Dar es Salaam for a few weeks, just around the time of filming Dodoma. “The film is about mental health and depression, a taboo disease that women in Tanzania don’t even have the right to have,” explains the director. “I believe that cinema must have a social function, also helping to make people understand that ‘it’s okay not to be okay’, it is also a right not to feel well “. Helen Hartmann takes the floor again. She is convinced that the mental health taboo affects not only women, but also men or children. The discussion becomes heated and by now it is almost dark. Beside a banana tree, beyond the wicker chairs, mosquitoes are buzzing. And in her head the last question: how do Tanzanian films end up? “They are open stories”, the girls reply, almost in chorus. “Everyone can see each other again, everyone can write the end”.