The Bag on My Back premieres on Wednesday 21 August 2013 at 20h00 GMT on Witness, Al Jazeera’s flagship documentary strand.
Zimbabwe in the early 1980s was a newly liberated country with productive farms and a highly regarded education system – it was the land of plenty.
However, within one person’s childhood all that changed. Filmmaker Tapiwa Chipfupa, who is now based in South Africa, returns to the country of her birth to understand the reason behind the catastrophe in Zimbabwe.
Guided by a box of old family photos and phone calls to her parents, in exile in the UK, she traces the story of her family’s life across Zimbabwe and the parallel story of the decline and collapse of the country.
Told from the perspective of a middle class African, this is a story of remembrance, of coming to terms with exile and change and a reminder of the need to guard and protect hard-won freedoms.
As Chipfupa asks in the documentary, “Why would you want something if you’re not going to look after it? What do you want it for?”
The Bag on my Back also screens at the following GMT times on Thursday 22 August at 12h00, Friday 23 August at 01h00 and Saturday 24 August at 06h00.
Visit http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/ for more information.
