ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how politics and interventions by political actors in the production of Flame (Sinclair 1996) impacted the representations of women and girls who participated in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War. Flame centres on Florence, who convinces her friend, Nyasha, that they should join Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial struggle. Despite the gender discrimination they face in the camp, Florence, who renames herself Flame, rises through the ranks to become a detachment commander. However, after the war ends, she becomes an ordinary woman in her rural village struggling to survive and feed her children. Flame, funded by a development organisation, was heavily censored by political elites in Zimbabwe who wished to protect patriarchal interests and maintain their hegemony in constructing the history of the anti-colonial struggle. This chapter demonstrates that Flame challenges official history within the limitations established by the patriarchal elites and the development framework. But, despite these limitations, the film still manages to challenge silences around women’s experiences in the patriarchal military wings of nationalist organisations during the anti-colonial struggle. The film drew a lot of media and public attention. It facilitated dialogue among the Zimbabwean population on issues relating to girls’ and women’s experiences during the war and their postcolonial conditions.
