Zimbabwean and Australian
Mugabe's Calling Card
Shot in South Africa and Zimbabwe, May to June 2008
Commissioned and broadcast by SBS TV Dateline

Finalist: Sony Professional Impact Award

This secretly-filmed report provides shocking evidence of the violence directed at opposition activists and supporters in the run-up to the 2008 Presidential elections.

Most of it was filmed inside Zimbabwe by Ginny Stein's fixer and translator who - for his safety - can only be known as "D".

Ginny and "D" had already filmed a number of undercover reports together in Zimbabwe and had established strong contacts but this time they decided it was too dangerous for Ginny to cross the border from South Africa. After a crash course in filming with a hidden camera, "D" went alone.

The judges praised the film as courageous and important. One said: "in recent months we have seen the work of many courageous journalists inside Zimbabwe. But this is the most detailed and moving footage I have seen. The final sequences showing activists who were set alight for opposing the Mugabe regime are almost unbearable to watch."

Ginny says: "When I saw the tape “D”  filmed inside the hospital I was overwhelmed even though he had warned me about what he had seen. He said he had heard about these things happening but didn't think they could be true."

Biography
Now based in New York, Ginny Stein has worked in radio and television for twenty years. For ten years, she worked as a foreign correspondent, based in Thailand and Indonesia for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation before joining SBS Dateline in 2002.

For the past five years she has been a freelancer. In 2007 Ginny won two Walkley awards for International Journalism for “Burma – Inside the Secret City” and Investigative Journalism “Rwanda – Questions of Murder”. She’s also a four-time Walkley Award finalist.

“D” is in his 30s and is based in Harare. “I think everybody has to do his own bit. I happen to be working with the media and that’s my way of fighting for change in Zimbabwe.”