Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Aga Khan Film - Africa Tour. Day 7: Dar es Salaam





Day 7 of my visit to Africa: The second screening in Africa was very different than yesterday's. Both were in Dar es Salaam and both were hosted by Avicenna but the second screening gave me a better opportunity to meet more of the Tanzanian Ismailis. It was low-profile, no media - it was very real. We did something very novel for them - actually 2 novel things. The first was we played my film in English but with Gujarati subtitles! Yes, a very new addition to the film. The second was we played the 1961 film, Living Camera: Aga Khan, in a cinema for the very first time ever. Ever! What touched me most was how the entire cinema was singing along to the ginan (comparable to a hymn) at the end of that film. It was so moving, words cannot describe the true feeling, and this blog post is an injustice to that actual moment.

No comments: