Every year, Zanzibar holds an international film festival for one week, usually in July, showcasing talented local and international film directors’ work as well as music and art exhibitions in various locations around Zanzibar from the Old Fort to the Double Tree by Hilton, which is where we sat in a room to watch the two-hour film, Safari ya Gwalu, written and directed by Daniel Magane, this was a film inspired by the Kenyan film called First Grader.
The film highlighted the struggles of adult education and daily life in Tanzania for both adults and children. It captured the hearts of its small audience at the DoubleTree, with spectators giving a round of applause and praise to the director and the leading actor, Salim Ahmad, who played Gwalu. The director also provided a question-and-answer session at the end.
The Director, Daniel, said that many people had told him that if they were able to go to school, it would open up new opportunities for them and enable them to live a better life; this was the main inspiration for him to create this film and to emphasise that, even if you are older than the average child that attends school, it is never too late to seek an education and work towards living a better life.
Salim said the main reason he took on the message of education and the importance of going to school, regardless of age. The message was that if someone wants to go to school, they should do so, irrespective of what anyone else says.
This film was great at showing what life can be like living in Tanzania, if not in other parts of Africa too; it showed how important it is for the young to go to and stay in school and for those who never went or never finished school before, to go at whatever age they can and if they don’t think they dare to go, as Gwalu in the film says, bravery can make a man do things he never thought possible.
