Repented and Flora and Dambudzo

Piotrowska, Agnieszka ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5980-6891 (2021) Repented and Flora and Dambudzo. Screenworks, 11 (1). ISSN 2514-3123

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Abstract

A practice-research journey across two experimental films, Flora and Dambudzo (2015) and Repented (2019), which share a core compelling question about the influence of colonialism on intimate relationships in Zimbabwe. Flora and Damudzo (2015) depicts a scene between the iconic Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera and his German lover Flora Veit Wild using words from their historical writing. Repented (2019) is based on a play by Zimbabwean playwright Stanely Makuwe and focuses on the confrontational meeting of two characters after a long absence. Through split screen editing, the film also incorporates archive material shot during the colonial times in Rhodesia and South Africa which serves as an expressive illustration of the profound injustice, oppressiveness and gestures of defiance that occurred. Through this sustained enquiry, Piotrowska describes the process of adapting different material for the screen, explores notions of theatricality and reflects on the significant period of time between the creation of the films as a period of learning and questioning her own preconceptions and ideas.