A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Birthplace:
Tanzania
Amil Shivji is based in Tanzania, his homeland, as a freelance filmmaker and lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam. He believes in using images to challenge the powers that be, in particular deconstructing urban facades of development and emphasizing the strength and struggles of marginalized communities. He has set up an independent production house called Kijiweni Productions that is committed to telling local stories with an international standard. He has written, directed and produced a few short fiction films that have addressed issues ranging from corruption and land grabbing to a commentary on the growing class divide. They have received worldwide recognition, participating in prestigious festivals such as International Film Festival Rotterdam and FESPACO in Burkina Faso as well as picking up many accolades on the way including winning People's Choice Award in Zanzibar and Best Director and Best Short film in Africa. His debut as a feature film producer was with Aisha (2015) and has been screened in Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, Tanga, Toronto, Singapore and picked up four awards at the ZIFF in July 2016. He released his directorial debut for a feature film called T-Junction (2017) that opened ZIFF 2017 and garnered three awards on the closing night. He is now in post- production on his latest feature, Vuta N'Kuvute (A Tug of War)- a story of love and resistance set in British colonial Zanzibar, 1950s.
Cinematography:
2018 The Ancestors
Co-Producer:
2018 The Ancestors
Director:
2013 Shoeshine
2017 T-Junction
2018 The Ancestors
2021 Mozizi
2023 Call Me Uncle
2024 Tug of War
Editor:
2013 Shoeshine
2017 T-Junction
2018 The Ancestors
2021 Mozizi
2023 Call Me Uncle
2024 Tug of War
Producer:
2013 Shoeshine
2017 T-Junction
2018 The Ancestors
2021 Mozizi
2023 Call Me Uncle
2024 Tug of War
Writer:
2013 Shoeshine
2017 T-Junction
2018 The Ancestors
2021 Mozizi
2023 Call Me Uncle
2024 Tug of War
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.