Movie-Database: Movies

These Hands

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Credits

Name: These Hands

Country: Tansania

Year of publication: 1991

Format: 16 mm

Color: color

Language : OF m. engl. UT

Duration: 45 Minuten

Direction: M`Mbugu-Schelling, Flora

Screenplay: M`Mbugu-Schelling, Flora

Camera: Kissoky, Suleiman

Editing: Ndonde, Evodia

Abstract

Dedicated to women everywhere struggling to survive in poverty, Flora M’mbugu-Schelling’s documentary shows women from Mozambique in a sunbaked Tanzanian quarry relentlessly cracking rock into bits with stone hammers. With conversation among the laborers, but without voiceover or other commentary, that is to say, contextualization, the film thus proceeds until its last breath, at which point script appears to inform us that these refugees work for themselves. This is heartening insofar as they aren’t being directly exploited, yet worrisome as well, for, given the harshness and monotony of their toil, it seems evident that they would be doing other things instead if a choice were available to them. These immigrants and pioneers are starting at the bottom - a familiar kind of place for those in an unfamiliar land. (http://grunes.wordpress.com)