TZ Film Festival and Awards: Where cinema sparkled, water cost fortune

DAR ES SALAAM: THERE are some evenings that pass like polite dinner guests. They knock gently, compliment the curtains and leave before the tea goes cold.

And then there are evenings that arrive in a convoy. With lights. With lenses. With cologne that announces itself before its owner does.

The Tanzania Film Festival and Awards, mercifully abbreviated to TaFFA, belongs to the second category.

Launched in 2021 by the Bodi ya Filamu Tanzania, TaFFA began life as what many assumed would be a worthy cultural footnote.

A nice idea. A ceremonial handshake for the industry. A polite clap in a modest hall.

Instead, it has grown teeth. And lighting rigs.

Last Sunday, beneath the vast ceiling of the Super Dome in Masaki, Dar es Salaam, understatement was formally uninvited.

From the moment one entered the Dome, it was clear that someone had both a vision and a spreadsheet.

The décor shimmered without apologising. The lighting was so forgiving it could have mediated family disputes.

The sound system behaved like it had completed postgraduate studies abroad and returned home with discipline and good manners.

Even the seating, that notorious saboteur of public gatherings, was flawless.

No craning necks. No territorial elbowing. No tall gentleman blocking the ambitions of determined aunties. Everyone could see the stage without yoga or negotiation.

In short, this was not chaos wearing sequins. This was choreography.

And then, the stars.

Goodness. The stars!

They arrived in such numbers that one briefly wondered if a casting call had collided with the awards schedule.

Actors, directors, producers, influencers and aspiring legends glided in beneath that dome, radiating cinematic ambition like solar panels at noon.

For a fleeting second, Masaki felt as if it had quietly signed a cultural exchange agreement with the Cannes Film Festival. The glamour flirted internationally.

The flavour, however, remained unmistakably Tanzanian. Warm. Vibrant. Just a touch louder with MCs overly talkative than strictly necessary.

The chief guest, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports, Gerson Msigwa, carried the evening with composed authority.

His address balanced encouragement with gentle parental guidance. He urged unity. He urged professionalism.

He reminded artists that film is not a hobby squeezed between errands, but a serious profession capable of churning serious money.

It was fatherly. It was fiscal. It was firm.

More than 400 submissions competed across 26 categories. Best Actor. Best Actress. Best Film. Best Music Score. A generous spread of technical honours that quietly keep the cinematic engine from stalling mid-scene.

TaFFA may not yet possess the hush-hush ballot mystique of the Academy Awards, where envelopes are guarded like state secrets, but its system is deliberate and evolving.

And then came the twist – Male Popular Public Vote Winner. Female Popular Public Vote Winner.

The Oscars would clutch their pearls.

The Academy prefers peer approval, solemn nods and dramatic pauses that last longer than some celebrity marriages.

TaFFA, meanwhile, shrugged and said, let the people speak. And speak they did.

And when the public vote winners were announced, the Dome did not respond with polite applause. It erupted. This was not clapping. This was WhatsApp mobilisation at dawn.

This was aunties forwarding voting links with missionary zeal. This was democracy in evening wear.

There was something deeply refreshing about it. In a country where cinemas are few and streaming has quietly colonised living rooms, this was an acknowledgment that the audience is not decorative. It is decisive.

Professor Martin Mhando, chief juror, delivered what may have been the evening’s most quietly revolutionary observation.

Most nominated films, he noted, had been watched on YouTube rather than on theatres or television.

Read that again.

That means in Tanzania cinema is no longer a building. It is your phone. Your laptop. Occasionally your daladala seat, wedged between two commuters and a determined handbag.

Instead of dressing up, buying popcorn and pretending not to check messages in the dark, audiences are watching award contenders in pyjamas.

The grand theatre has relocated to the sofa. The usher has been replaced by Wi Fi. The comment section now doubles as both critique and ballot box.

In Tanzania, YouTube is not a backup plan. It is the main stage.

And now we must address the subplot that deserves its own investigative podcast.

Water.

At some point, even glamour requires hydration. One approaches the refreshment counter with optimism and the naïve belief that water remains a basic human right.

“Water,please.”

“Five thousand.”

Five thousand shillings.

For a 200 millilitres bottle….

Let us sit with that. That was the price at the TaFFA thing at the Dome that night!

Two hundred millilitres is not hydration. It is a suggestion. It is the trailer for a film your throat actually wants to watch.

Three ambitious gulps and it is gone, leaving you emotionally and financially reflective.

Elsewhere in civilised society, such a bottle might cost 500 shillings. Perhaps 1,000 if the bottle is feeling particularly aspirational.

But 5,000? At that price, one expects the water to have been sourced from a glacier that writes poetry.

Buy two and you begin reassessing your monthly budget. Offer to buy for three friends and you have effectively financed a minor infrastructure project.

Hydration that night was not a refreshment decision. It was a financial commitment requiring stakeholder consultation.

And yet, here lies the true triumph. There were no riots. No dramatic walkouts. Just dignified grumbling and continued celebration.

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Because TaFFA accomplished what it set out to do. It managed to make Tanzanian cinema feel grand.

It whispered to young filmmakers in Mwanza, Arusha and Mtwara, editing scenes on determined laptops, that this stage could one day be theirs. It told actors rehearsing in modest living rooms that their names, too, might echo beneath professional lighting.

Awards shape narrative. They manufacture belief, you know…

As I stepped into the humid Masaki night, the glow of the Dome fading behind me, I reflected on what would linger longest in my mind.

The décor was dazzling. The stars were radiant. The public vote was gloriously democratic.

The water was unforgettably ambitious.

Next year, I vowed, I shall definitely attend again.

I shall participate enthusiastically in the public vote. I shall also spare some dough to buy bundles to watch Bongo Movie films on Youtube.

I shall study the judging criteria with scholarly interest.

And most importantly, I shall hydrate strategically beforehand like a seasoned marathon runner.

Why? Because TaFFA is not trying to be Hollywood. It is becoming confidently Tanzanian.

And that, even at 5,000 shillings a sip, deserves applause.