SWAZI ACTIVIST FILM UP FOR AWARD

Swaziland documentary nominated for international award

Kenworthy News Media, 6 November 2015

SOURCE

“Swaziland – Africa’s last monarchy”, a documentary film about activist Bheki Dlamini by award-winning Danish investigative journalist Tom Heinemann, has been nominated in the short film category at the Al-Jazeera International Film Festival, writes Kenworthy News Media.

The main character in the documentary, young activist Bheki Dlamini, says that he is pleased with the nomination as well as with the publicity that the film has given the struggle for democracy and social justice in his homeland of Swaziland.

“The documentary on Swaziland has helped to give a voice to the suffering people of Swaziland who are in a bitter struggle for freedom and democracy. My story, as captured in the documentary, is the story of most activists in Swaziland who are subjected to torture, beatings, arrests and forced exile. The nomination of the documentary is a victory for the people of Swaziland as Mswati’s regime can no longer afford to fool the world that there is no problem in Swaziland”, says Bheki Dlamini.

In August, the film won the main prize and the prize for best short documentary at the A Film for Peace-festival in Italy as part of Tom Heinemann and Erling Borgen’s series, “A Heart That Never Dies”. The series has been aired on Danish-, Swedish- and Norwegian national television.

Tom Heinemann has won the Danish Outstanding Investigative Journalist of the year award twice, and has been runner up for Journalist of the year in Denmark three times. In 2007 he won the Prix Italia in the current affairs selection.