Zanzibar International Film Festival to attract films from 43 countries

STONE TOWN, Tanzania, July (Xinhua) -- The Zanzibar International Film Festival in Tanzania is expected to attract films from 43 countries to the annual event scheduled on July 10 to July 18.

With the theme of "Hopes in Harmony", the film festival provides one opportunity for all Zanzibaris to come and watch films for free on a big screen, and calls for peace and harmony in Zanzibar, the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Opening films includes "I Bring What I Love", which takes the audience behind the scenes and into the world of Africa's most famous musician Youssou N'dour.

Among the special highlights this year's festival is the world Cup final, which would scream the climax of this extraordinary African football extravaganza on late July 11 in the old fort.

Many of the films to be shown at the festival have highlighted every day life of women in the society, according to the press release. It also includes performing arts, which is a street theatre component and it shall work with the literary forum in showcasing the spoken word in an event and it will bring the local repertories to contact with other spoken word performances.

The film festival is seen by the government as a symbol of enhancing Zanzibar culture and acts as a factor of propagating Zanzibar tourism sector, and thus enabling more tourists to visit Zanzibar and boosting Zanzibar economy.

Zanzibar artists fight for tourist cash

Tourism is now Zanzibar's biggest industry - easily outstripping the trade in spices, traditionally the Tanzanian island's biggest foreign currency earner.

But local artists complain that they are not able to reap the rewards from the tourist boom.

They say that most of the art on sale is mass produced and has little relevance to the island's culture.

The so-called "tourist art" is ruining their livelihood, they claim.

'Commercial artist'

Saidi Omary, 24, paints up to 15 pieces of "tourist art" a week.

"I am a commercial artist, I paint what is marketable," he said.

"I do create original works but they don't sell quickly which is bad because I need the money."

Despite the thriving tourism industry, the island is still very poor.

The average wage is just 60 US cents a day and it is not surprising that artists are turning out effortless reproductions that they can sell for a few dollars.

Awareness
But some artists working in Zanzibar deplore this commercial approach to art.


Artist Hamza Ausiy is dismissive of "tourist art" and says it is ruining his business.

"For me tourist art is boring and confusing, because if you are an artist, you have a dream and creativity but if you do this sort of work you are always looking for bread," he said.

He says his canvases - which cost $200 or more - are all original artworks and feature exclusively Zanzibari scenes.

Artists selling the original works have now got together to form an association to promote their work.

Musa Ramadhan is secretary of the Zanzibar Young Artists Association.

He says artists should be selling to the local market, even if their volumes are small.

"We need to create awareness among the local people to make them like our art and even hang our works in their homes," Mr Ramadhan said.

He says artists in Zanzibar need to change and create ideas from their culture.

"People on this island like religion we should put religion in our pictures," Mr Ramadhan recommends.

For the time being though, the art market in Zanzibar is driven by the hoards of artists selling mass-produced art.


BBC NEWS

Taste of Zanzibar

For authentic halal east African cuisine, the Taste of Zanzibar is the place to go. The dishes reflect the rich heritage found in this ancient part of Tanzania from the spices to the staples, namely chapatti and rice.


When we walked into this eating experience we had little knowledge of this culture's culinary facets, yet we left with a deeper understanding of the fusion of flavors and components that earmark this cuisine. We felt very comfortable in the casual setting and knew that we were in good hands.

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