Uhuru is not a story; it is a right. A chance for hundred of thousands of voiceless people in Tanzania to have a platform. Here, a group of people with a variety of impairments reveal the conditions that they experience daily.
Writer/Director: Tom Gentle
Producer: Harry Truman
Associate Producers: Michael Kinlan and Lizzie Cameron
“Uhuru has a dual meaning. More readily known to us as the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, Uhuru is also Swahili for a cross between independence, freedom and liberty. For overlooked minorities in Tanzania’s Mara Region, Uhuru is a concept far from reach. In what arrives as their documentary debut, also entitled Uhuru, Tom Gentle and Harry Truman are two filmmakers who magnify this otherwise somnolent situation. Intolerable case studies are eloquently portrayed to amplify and expose the stigma disabled minorities face daily from the community and the government, including sexual and discriminatory abuse. The documentary necessarily avoids a counter productive victimisation of its interviewed subjects, instead illustrating frank musings on the causes and the continual perpetuation of this deep-seated discrimination. Whilst highlighting the local failures, Uhuru does not neglect the global failure to consciously accept its respective acts of malpractice.”
– San Francisco Documentary Festival, 2017
Screenings: San Francisco International Documentary Film Festival, Zanzibar International Film Festival, Africa in Motion.