A Danish company has taken Zimbabwe to court seeking an order to bar authorities from stopping the screening of a documentary on 2018 presidential candidate, Nelson Chamisa.
The censorship board barred the screening of the film saying it will incite violence ahead of next year’s harmonized elections.
In court papers filed in Harare, the Danish firm - Final Cut for Real – argues that its not happy about the Censorship and Entertainment Control Unit’s move to ban the President documentary, which focuses on Chamisa, who in 2018 was a presidential candidate for the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance.
Chris Mhike, who is representing Final Cut for Real, told VOA Zimbabwe Service that his clients decided to take the matter to court after the Board of Appeal seemed not interested in the matter. Cited in the court case are Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe and Zimbabwe’s Attorney General.
Mhike said it’s unconstitutional to stop Zimbabweans from watching the documentary, which highlights electoral fraud in the 2018 general elections and other issues.
The film’s director, Camilla Neilson, said it’s surprising that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has banned the film when he promised to have a democratic state soon after he toppled then President Robert Mugabe in a defacto military coup in 2017.
Kazembe Kazembe said he was not in a position to comment on “this issue as it is subjudice.”
Neilson and crew produced their first Zimbabwean film – Democrats – which won the best documentary feature honor at Tribeca in 2015. President, which premiered in Sundance early this year, won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award.
VOA Correspondent Frank Chikowore also contributed to this article