The Zimbabwean film industry
Nyasha Mboti
University of Johannesburg
Citation:
Mboti, N. (2016). The Zimbabwean Film Industry. African Communication Research 7(3),
145-172. http://dx.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5RUPD
Abstract
This article explores the state of affairs in Zimbabwe’s film industry. It
addresses the question: does a Zimbabwean film industry exist? The complex
answer depends on at least two parameters. The first is one’s chosen definition of a
film industry. The second is the extent of one’s knowledge of realities on the ground.
The article argues that the Zimbabwean film industry, like most in Africa, is
necessarily a work in progress. That is, it is constantly adapting to social, political
and economic conditions in the search for a sustainable model or growth. Since 1980,
the industry has been in a prolonged search for itself. A general feature has been the
search for ways with which to replace thirty-year old colonial heritages of
filmmaking, distribution and exhibition. Today what was traditionally a minority
activity is becoming open to broader participation. The future, though, remains an
unknown x. Funding, distribution and profitability are still sore points. For the first
time, however, what seem like true foundations are being laid.
Keywords: Zimbabwean film industry; filmmaking; distribution; exhibition; film
industry
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“Our time is ... a time of works in progress”
Fernando Solanas & Octavio Getino (1976)
INTRODUCTION
This article discusses the state of affairs in Zimbabwe’s thirty five year old
film industry. The discussion is divided into four sections, focusing on the 1980s,
1990s, 2000s and the present. The discussion wraps in 2015, but likely short term and
long term future trends are mapped. The trajectory of the Zimbabwean film industry
itself has tended to settle, loosely, into those four ten-year periods, with some
noticeable overlaps. Each period has been characterised by a more or less dominant
film industry model. All the models that have been experimented with have, at base,
been distinctly motivated by funding issues. Where is the money going to come
from? Who is going to pay the piper? The issue of who was going to fund the piping
was connected intimately with distribution and exhibition. Who watches the
content? Where and how do they watch it? What is the nature of the return on
investment? Who controls the route to audiences? Control of the route to market
meant control over who saw what, when, how and for what purpose. The narrative
of the Zimbabwean film industry is in a larger sense an attempt to provide sufficient
answers to these questions.
The use of the term “film industry” does not, and ideally should not, mean a
single thing to everyone. If one applies the definition used in the economically
privileged contexts of film industries in the United States and Europe, or even in
neighbouring South Africa, there would be no Zimbabwean film industry to talk
about. In the United States corporations and oligopolies, in the form of horizontally
and vertically integrated Hollywood studios, dominate the industry from base to
apex. In European countries such as France, Germany and England numerous state
and private bodies exist for funding local film industries. The South African
government, through the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) (there are
plans to rename it to the South African Film Commission), and through other
government departments such as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI),
Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), Department of Arts and Culture (DAC),
and South African Revenue Services (SARS), offers up to 70% funding to local film
filmmakers and co-productions.1 The growth of internationally competitive studios
1
To these bodies are added various provincial film commissions and film offices such as the Gauteng Film
Commission, the KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission, the Cape Town Film Commission, the Zulu Coast Film
Commission, and the Durban Film Office. It is now possible, in theory, to procure up to 70% funding from the
government, with the provision that all the stipulated requirements are met.
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such as Cape Town Film Studios has also placed South Africa on the map of what
Goldsmith, Ward and O’Regan (2010) have called “local Hollywoods”.
A general starting point for assessing whether or not Zimbabwe has a film
industry is to probe the realities of the route to market. Does the local film industry
produce enough volumes to satisfy a significant percentage of the 15 million
Zimbabweans? Do the films made by local filmmakers reach a majority of the 15
million Zimbabweans? Is money being made from making films? Who is making
money from making films? How do the films reach audiences? The question about
whether or not Zimbabwe has a film industry partly rests on the answers to the first
three questions. If answers to these set of questions are in the affirmative, then it
would seem that a film industry of one form or another does exist in Zimbabwe. A
negative set of answers, however, would indicate that things are not so optimistic.
This article examines these questions by exploring the last thirty five (1980-2015)
years of the Zimbabwean film value chain.
The film services framework (Goldsmith & O’Regan 2005) is used to frame the
discussion. This approach draws attention away from the film product per se and
towards “the variety of intermediate inputs, organizational arrangements, and
expertise associated with the processes involved in developing film projects”
(Goldsmith & O’Regan 2005: 55). Film services approaches are concerned with the
capacity of film industries, their technological competitiveness, and their robustness.
Foregrounded are the capabilities – skills, infrastructures, and networks – that
underwrite the capacity of a film industry in a region or locality to create and
innovate. Such approaches increasingly stress the importance of various film
services providers across the value chain in growing and managing the industry.
Through applying the film services framework, the article surveys the film industry
value chain of Zimbabwe’s film industry and the strength of the links in the chain.
The task of researching the Zimbabwean film industry is made more difficult
by the paucity of data on the local film industry. Industry stakeholders are dispersed
and difficult to track down systematically. Instruments for methodically and
rigorously surveying the state of the industry have not yet been devised or used.
There is also no central film organisation, such as a Film Commission, tasked with
collecting systematic intelligence on the industry. The little baseline data that exists
is collected by the Culture Fund and the National Arts Council, organisations whose
focus is not necessarily film but the generality of the “arts”. Even then, exhaustive
information pertaining to direct employment, indirect employment and multiplier
effects are hardly accessible. Qualitative industry research, for the most part, is
confined to non-governmental organisations working on specialised media and
freedom of expression topics. In the thirty five years that the industry has existed in
one form or another, not a single proper industry review has been carried out.
Without baseline data, comprehensive studies are out of the question. This paucity
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of data frustrates research and makes interpretation of states of affairs unnecessarily
thorny.
Hungwe (2001) has reviewed film-making in Zimbabwe from 1948 to 2000,
concluding that film-making over a period of 50 years had been subject to an
evolving, ideologically inflected post-Second World War agenda for development in
the former colonies. Burns (2002) appraises seventy years of colonial cinema in
Rhodesia, considering the relationship between colonial film and identity,
particularly how Africans themselves perceived these films. Burns’ gaze is largely
trained at the Central African Film Unit (CAFU), an instrument for the spread of
British imperial propaganda. The suggestion in Burns’ account is that Africans were
not always sucked in by the propaganda. The important work by Hungwe (1991;
1992; 2001) and Burns (2002; 2003) has tended to be preponderantly historical and
backwards looking. One senses that the upsurge in interest in the historical archive
of Zimbabwean film is a logical result of a previously long-standing paucity of
history on the industry. The upshot of it is that we now have some sense of the
history but without much in terms of critical studies that are relevant to present-day
trends. Not much is in evidence in terms post-2000 trends in the film industry.
A rare but important study by Joffe and Jacklin (2003) carried out a value
chain analysis of film and television industries in Southern Africa, including
Zimbabwe, at the turn of the century. The study concluded that the problem of
“distribution of audio-visual products in the southern African region is arguably the
primary blockage in the film and television value chain in the region” (Joffe &
Jacklin 2003: iv). This situation, they observe, arises because the market for audiovisual products in southern Africa is “still relatively small due to lack of resources
from the broadcasters, the high ratio of rural, poor communities in the region with
low spending power and low levels of appreciation for film and television
productions due to lack of exposure” (2003: iv).
A BRIEF HISTORY
The historiography of the Zimbabwean film industry begins in colonial
Rhodesia. The fundamental basis of the Rhodesian colony was to find and use a pool
of cheap black labour for creating wealth for a white minority from mining and
agriculture. A Royal Charter to occupy the region between the Zambezi and
Limpopo Rivers on behalf of the British Crown had been granted to Cecil John
Rhodes’ British South Africa Company (BSAC) in 1889, on the basis of the fraudulent
Rudd Concession. Rhodes was a speculator with designs to turn Africa from Cape to
Cairo into a British money-making project, using Africans as perpetual servants. The
Glen Gray Act of 1884 outlined this project.
Africans resisted the Charter by waging zvimurenga between 1890 and 1899. Colonial
conquest, however, was speedily confirmed with the hanging of Nehanda in 1898.
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Victorious white settlers regarded land, minerals, cattle and other resources as war
booty. The BSAC ran Zimbabwe from 1890 until 1923. Britain took over the
‘responsible government’ of the colony until 1953. The government of Ian Smith
unilaterally declared independence from Britain, ruling the country until 1980 when
majority rule was won through nearly 18 years of war.
The ninety-year period from 1890 to 1980 was marked by different forms of
profit-making by whites (Phimister 1988; Bond 1998). To secure such profit-making,
Africans had to be turned into labourers by any means necessary. Cinema was only
one of many cultural formations arising out of this larger wealth-grabbing project.
The creation in 1935 of the Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment (BEKE) by the
Colonial Office of the British Film Institute, for instance, was funded by corporations
such as Carnegie, Rhokana, Roan Antelope Copper Mines, and Mufulira Copper
Mines Ltd among others (Notcutt et al 1937). Based in Tanzania (then Tanganyika),
the Experiment produced films designed to turn Africans into pro-British, loyal and
economically productive servants of empire.2 The British government established the
Colonial Film Unit in 1939 on the basis laid by the BEKE.
The use of film for ‘development’ was funded by the Colonial Development
and Welfare Act of 1940 and subsequent acts. Film was to be used as a medium of
adult education. The narrative of the local film industry therefore begins in 1945
with the decision by the Central African Council3 to set up a film unit for the
federation.4 The purpose of the film unit would be to produce and distribute 16mm
instructional films for ‘native’ audiences. The unit was given the name the Central
African Film Unit (CAFU) and began operations in September 1948 with
headquarters in Salisbury (Harare) and field units in all three territories. CAFU’s
first “Producer” was Alan Izod, who had formerly supervised the colonial
productions at the Central Office of Information in London (Burns 2002; Smyth 1988;
Nell 1998)5
Colonial Film Unit policy followed apartheid-like thinking. 16mm films were
geared squarely towards the work of ‘developing’ and ‘civilising’ natives. 35mm
film, on the other hand, was to be used to output “tourist and publicity films for
overseas, and films for Europeans in Central Africa” (Smyth 1988: 131). The
2
According to Manthia Diawara (1987), this was achieved through films such as Tax, Progress, High Yields
from Selected Plants, Coffee Marketing, Infant Malaria and Hookworm.
3
The Central African Council was an administrative body established to co-ordinate activities between the
“self-governing” settler colony of Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland
(Malawi), which were still run through the Colonial Office. The British Colonial Film Unit also set up four
production units that it directly controlled in East and West Africa.
4
Under this arrangement, Southern Rhodesia was to be responsible for 50% of the unit’s operating costs. The
remaining funds were to be derived from the Colonial Development and Welfare Funds on behalf of Northern
Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Burns 2002: 66).
5
Stephen Peet headed the Salisbury field unit as ‘director/cameraman’.
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paternalistic assumptions of colonial Rhodesian film, treating Africans as children,
were typified by a radio broadcast in 1950 in which Izod remarked:
The goal was to make educational films that were presented in an
entertaining way, with strong moral messages. Adult Africans were to be
protected from unwholesome messages, in other words the production of
films ‘affording healthy entertainment’.6
Some of the “educational” titles included films such as The Two Farmers (good
farming and hard work vs. bad farming and laziness), The Wives of Nendi (hygiene)
Still Waters: The Menace of Bilharzia (disease), and Sunshine Patrol (law and order).
These films were taken on ‘tour’ using mobile units, establishing a pattern where
African audiences were regularly ‘visited’ by film. The “visits” established film as a
“modernising” diffusion-of-innovations institution. The visited audiences were,
however, not seen as having stories and idioms of their own. At least, it was not
thought that African stories (from a non-CAFU perspective) were worth telling.
Neither were Africans seen as potential independent filmmakers. It is around this
time, one could argue, that the view of filmmaking as an elite business was
established. Such an idea has haunted and prevented the local film industry from
fully taking wing. The idea of film as a task for the talented tenth has only effectively
been debunked twenty years after independence.
CAFU existed from 1948 until 1963 when the Rhodesian Federation fell apart.
The years following the Declaration of Independence (UDI) saw a growing focus
towards the centralised use of film as state propaganda to counteract African
nationalism (Frederikse, 1990).7 At the head of this focus was the Ministry of
Information. Independent filmmaking, exemplified by Michael Raeburn’s Rhodesia
Countdown (1969), was extremely rare. Raeburn’s film was significant for its use of a
black actor (Dominic Kanaventi) in a starring role. The fact that the film had to be
made on the sly and had to be smuggled out of the country serves as a barometer to
the filmmaking environment of the UDI years. The only forms of local filmmaking
generally consented to were propaganda films of two types; those selling Rhodesia
as a place for Europeans to visit or to migrate to and films educating Rhodesians
against the “terrorists” agitating for majority rule.
Law-and-order-themed films such as War on Terror and Whispering Death8
sought to portray Africans fighting whites as the sole generators of the colony’s
Film Birth, “History of cinema in Zimbabwe from 1896-2000”, http://www.filmbirth.com/zimbabwe.html
CAFU lost some of its staff through emigration. Those who remained were largely absorbed by the Rhodesian
government as part of its propaganda machine.
8
Whispering Death (also known as Albino, The Night of the Askari, and Death in the Sun) is a 1976 German
thriller directed by Jürgen Goslar. The movie, based on the novel by Daniel Carney, was filmed on location
during the so-called Rhodesian “bush war”. A British South Africa Police officer’s fiancée is raped and
6
7
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problems. The films partly aimed at winning the so-called “hearts and minds” of the
rural African population. The films also consistently glorified the “boys” fighting
“terrs” in the “bush”. It is understandable how a movie such as Whispering Death
could have been shot in war-time Rhodesia. It bolstered the establishment view of
savage terrorists and heroic whites fighting to preserve civilisation. The forerunner
of the law and order film was seen in CAFU films such as Sunshine Patrol which
valorised the police as keepers of the peace. As we will later see, the strategy of
blaming and criminalising the victim for violence, inequality and other social ills,
and of seeing the victim as a disease to be cured or a problem to be solved, remained
(perhaps unwittingly) a core filmmaking device in Zimbabwean films many years
after independence.
Since the federation era, the core of film production and distribution in
Zimbabwe had been owned, operated and controlled by the government through the
Ministry of Information. A wing of the Ministry of Information known as Production
Services functioned as the production center for local films and foreign coproductions. Most of the propaganda films of the war years, for instance, were
produced by Production Services. The Smith government’s investment in an
“information” superstructure to counter anti-UDI “elements” saw the consolidation
of the work of Central Film Laboratories. The CFL was a fully-fledged film
laboratory established in the latter years of CAFU that could handle 16mm and
35mm colour and black printing and processing, including a sound mixing facility.
Set up in 1960 with premises custom built to accommodate studios, animation and
titling rooms, audio production facilities, projection rooms, and offices, the CFL was
established with the interests of a tiny white filmmaking minority in mind. To an
extent, the CFL became a mini-hub of white regional filmmaking during the 60s and
70s. The labs were nationalised shortly after independence, finally closing down in
1996. The closure of the CFL was, in some ways, a symbol of the death of the elitist
35mm dream and the birth of the contemporary critical mass of independent video
filmmakers.
THE 1980s
The film industry was seen as a potential priority sector for economic growth
in the early 1980s. The first decade of independence saw the government of
Zimbabwe, through the Ministry of Information, promote Zimbabwe as a location
for foreign productions. As a result, films such as, King Solomon’s Mines (1985), Cry
Freedom (1987), Mandela (1987)A World Apart (1988), White Hunter Black Heart (1990)
and The Power of One (1992), were shot in Zimbabwe. The purpose of this model was
at least threefold. Firstly, attracting Hollywood studios was seen a national economic
investment. The production of Cry Freedom illustrated this point. The government
murdered. The officer takes matters into his own hands and pursues the albino African “terrorist” to mete
revenge.
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struck up a partnership with Universal Pictures, investing US$5.5 million. The
experiment, however, did not prove to be a financial success and the government
did not realise a significant return on its investment (ROI). Secondly the studios
were meant to plough back into the local film industry by way of skills-transfer and
training of local film-makers. The core of local Hollywood studio-mentored
filmmakers would, in turn, form a local film industry. Finally, attracting Hollywood
productions seemed a good idea for the image of the newly independent country.
The arrival of in the country of a host of famous stars such as Richard Chamberlain,
Sharon Stone, Kelvin Kline, Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood buttressed this
public relations effort.
The idea to use Hollywood productions to create capacity in the local film
industry reaped some benefits. J Lee Thompson King Solomon’s Mines (1985), in
which bounty hunting ‘explorer’ Allan Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) teams up
with Jesse Huston (Sharon Stone) to help find her father who has been lost in Africa,
used local actors. Oliver Tengende, Isaac Mabhikwa, Innocent Choga, Brian Kagure
and the late Simon Shumba (famous in local television as Mutirowafanza) were
among the local actors cast in the movie. Mabhikwa, Choga and Kagure, however,
all played roles of the “Silent Ones” and Mutirowafanza was a mere extra.9 Godwin
Mawuru, who went on to direct Neria,10 was a camera trainee on World Apart (1988).
Stephen Chigorimbo was an assistant director in King Solomon’s Mines, Cry Freedom,
Jake Speed (1986), Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986) and Mandela (1987).
Isaac Mabhikwa, who later directed More Time, also had minor roles in numerous
major feature films such as Cry Freedom, A World Apart and White Hunter, Black
Heart.11 There is no doubt, therefore, that the foreign productions did help showcase
local actors as well as train local filmmakers. The local cast and crew, however, all
functioned in more or less menial “servant” roles. It is doubtful that this model was
a sustainable foundation for a viable film industry.
The 1980s also saw some offshoots of independent filmmaking, mostly of a
documentary nature with a sprinkling of shorts and mini-features. A key figure in
independent filmmaking of this era was the late Olley Maruma who produced and
directed The Assegai (1982), Quest for Freedom (1981), After the Hunger and Drought
(1988)12 and Consequences (1988). Consequences is a significant film in that it was the
first mini-feature by an African in post-independence Zimbabwe. Significantly, the
Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom (1987), featuring rookie Denzel Washington, also cast local actors such
as Lawrence Simbarashe as the “Informer”, Munyaradzi Kanaventi as “Samora Biko”, Dominic Kanaventi as a
“Black frontier policeman”, Walter Muparutsa as the “Lesotho businessman” and Mutirowafanza as the “Young
Lesotho official”. Chris Menges World Apart cast, among others, the late Mackay Tickey as Milius, Clement
Muchachi as Sipho and Continueloving Mhlanga as Mtutureli Niekwu.
10
Neria was Godwin Mawuru’s third production. Mawuru is also well known in Zimbabwe for producing the
popular soap, Studio 263.
11
Mabhikwa was an Assistant Director in A World Apart.
12
After the Hunger and Drought is a 54 minute documentary which features Dambudzo Marechera, Stanlake
Samkange and other writers debating the role of the writer in society.
9
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film also heralded the dawn of the NGO-film. Other independent productions in the
1980s decade include Clive Harding’s Shamwari (1980), which features Stephen
Chigorimbo and the late wrestler Oliver Tengende, and Edwina Spicer’s
documentary, Biko: Breaking the Silence (1988). The 1980s, however, was not the
decade of independent filmmaking. In the absence of cheaper alternatives such as
video, filmmaking remained an expensive undertaking not only reserved for a
devoted elite but one which resulted in little return on investment. Existing
distribution and exhibition formats also did not support the establishment of a solid
independent filmmaking base.
The lack of return of investment on Cry Freedom experiment marked a
significant turning point in the government’s relationship with the film industry.
Since that time, the government has refrained from funding feature film production.
Furthermore, the government no longer involves itself in actively courting foreign
productions and co-production as part of economic growth policy. There has been a
noticeable shift of priorities since the 1980s and film industry was the loser. At recent
film indabas held in Harare to craft a film policy for Zimbabwe, participants were
very vocal about the government’s “apathy” towards the film industry. Indeed, lack
of government support for local film industries is a common theme in most African
countries. Diawara (1987) has argued that:
Not only film production but also distribution in Africa has faced a
ruthless and monopolistic exploitation by American, European, and the
Indian distribution companies. The film industry in Africa has no
government protection — neither import quotas nor the freezing of boxoffice receipts.13
The pulling out of the Zimbabwean government from an active role in the local film
industry left a vacuum. This gap was promptly filled by “developmental’ nongovernmental organisations.
THE 1990s
The 1990s were the decade of the NGO film. The NGO film is a type of film
funded by (mostly) foreign non-governmental organisations. The purposes of such
film are to influence and modify audience behaviours in accordance with the
ideological mission of each respective NGO (Mahoso 2000). Behaviour change is
targeted through specific themed slogans. For instance, a film such as More Time
(1993) is devoted to reminding youths about the dangers of teenage pregnancy hence
the slogan is “more time” (“wait’) before sex.14 Consequences (1989) deals with the
13
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC32folder/SubsaharanFilmDiawara.html
The title theme of the film suggests that all teenagers should take more time before becoming involved in
‘risky’ behaviour. Assuming that ‘more time’ is taken, will this necessarily lower the danger? Is it merely a
question of time?
14
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consequences of rushing into sex15 while Everyone’s Child (1996) is about taking care
of every AIDS orphan as if it were everyone’s child. Yellow Card (2001) is about
giving irresponsible men a behavioural “yellow card” or caution, preparatory to
giving them a final red card should they choose not undergo behaviour change.
Choose Freedom is about youths choosing “freedom”. The decade began with the
“orphaning” of the film industry as the government retreated from its short-lived
active role as an investor. NGOs were the ones that moved in rapidly to fill the
vacuum that was left open.
Central to the NGO film was the work of the Media for Development Trust
(MFDT), a local project of the Media for Development International (MFDI). MFDI is
a tax-exempt American NGO established in November 1989 after securing donor
support from UNESCO, Johns Hopkins, CIDA, SIDA, NVR/Rockefeller, sixty-three
private individuals and an interest free loan facility from the Development through
Self-Reliance Inc (DSR).16 DSR continued to fund MFD projects throughout the
decade to a point where the two organisations practically shared the same
accounting software. Registration with USAID also opened doors for MFDI access to
some of the millions of dollars of aid that the USAID gives to registered Private
Voluntary Organisations (PVOs) each year. MFDI completed its first full year of real
activity in 1992, getting about a quarter of a million dollars in support from about 15
different donors. The MFDI’s Annual Report for 1991 records that the organisation
received support of $5,500 from Rockefeller's National Video Resources to cover
‘social message film/video’ projects for Africa.
The concept of ‘media for development’ is cited in a World Bank ‘Working
Paper’ as encompassing ‘education, information, entertainment and edutainment’. 17
Under this perspective, development is exclusively donor-driven. For instance, the
MFD received funding from PLAN International, Anglo-American and the British
Government’s Overseas Development Administration to make Everyone’s Child.
Principal funding for Yellow Card came from Pathfinder International. In the case of
More Time, Ben Zulu approached various donors as well as private corporations for
funds; pledges were given from many donor agencies including UNICEF, DANIDA
and SIDA. Also, MFDI in the USA provided about US$90,000 in bridging loans to
make the project possible.18 Consequences was produced with support from
Pathfinder International, IPPF, Ford Foundation and DSR.
15
Consequences demonstrates the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy to encourage youth to take
precaution. Rita, a 16 year old, becomes pregnant.
16
Media for Development International (MFDI), (1991) Annual Report,
http://mfditanzania.com/images/pdf/annualreport1991.pdf Retrieved on 14-02-2010
17
Locksley, G. (2009) The Media and Development: What’s the Story? World Bank Working Paper 158
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INFORMATIONANDCOMMUNICATIONANDTECHNOLOGIES/Resour
ces/The_Media_and_Development.pdf
18
Media for Development International, Inc, Neria Grassroots Distribution Project,
http://www.mfdi.org/content.php?pgn_id=4
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MFD’s relationship with donor organisations, corporations and wealthy
private individuals mirrors the support that the Bantu Educational Kinema
Experiment (BEKE) received from corporations such as Carnegie, Rhokana, Roan
Antelope Copper Mines, Mufulira Copper Mines Ltd and others. Support from
USAID aligns the MFD with the strategic interests of the US. The USAID, established
through the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act through which US President Kennedy
sought to use international aid to align strategic goals with development goals, is
part of US foreign assistance which supports the country’s political, economic and
national security interests.
Essentially 1990 to 2000 can be described as the MFD decade. The NGO,
fronted by John and Louise Riber, funded the majority of feature and documentary
films produced in and around that decade. The films included Consequences, Neria,
More Time, Everyone’s Child,19 Yellow Card, Choose Freedom, Mwanasikana, The Sharing
Day, Ndodii, A Fighting Spirit and Faces of Aids. Through its films, MFD spent millions
of US dollars in the local film industry. Riber (2001), in fact, boasts that:
The reputation that Zimbabwe has earned and enjoyed as a strong film
production center in the region is primarily the result of our distribution
efforts across Africa. MFD productions are among the most widely seen
and used films made on the continent.20
During the early years of the land reform programme which resulted in the
exiling of a majority of white farmers, MFD permanently relocated to Tanzania.
Tanzania, ironically, is the birthplace of the colonial film in Africa. In Riber’s words,
film and video production in Zimbabwe had “been seriously affected by the recent
political and economic problems”.21 Many NGOs that had been active during the
decade also shut shop or scaled down operations.
Everyone’s Child is a film by writer-turned-filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga on the theme of hardships faced
by children orphaned by AIDS. The film was shot on location in Harare and Domboshava between October 23
and December 6, 1995. The cast was a mix of veterans and amateurs. For instance, Walter Muparutsa (Uncle
Ozias), Simon Shumba (Pastor), and Elijah Madzikatire (Shaghi) had been screen actors for a while, while
Nomsa Mlambo (Tamari), Thulani Sandhla (Itai) and Chunky Phiri (Thabiso) were more or less first-timers.
19
Everyone’s Child was the second latest film production of Media for Development Trust after Neria, and was
released with premieres in Harare, Toronto, and Mill Valley, United States. According to the MFDTI, the film
was produced as a direct response to the prediction that by the year 2000 there would be over 10,000 000 Aids
orphans on the African continent. The film won a set of awards for Best Script, Best Music and Best
Cinematography at the Southern African Film Festival. Everyone’s Child, like Neria, was produced by John and
Louise Riber of Media for Development Trust (MFDT) Like Neria, Everyone’s Child is one of the so called
‘social message’ films.
20
http://www.mfdi.org//content.php?pgn_id=35
Riber, Jon (2001) ‘An Overview of the Audio-Visual Scene in Zimbabwe’
http://www.mfdi.org//content.php?pgn_id=35 Retrieved 12 August 2009
21
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MFDI is the copyright holder of all the Zimbabwean films it produced, a
situation further complicated by the fact that DSR Inc seems to own the copyright to
MFDI films. Hence in 1998:
DSR, Inc turned over to MFDI the relationship with all the copyright
holders of the 80 or so titles DSR distributes. We developed new contracts
for each title between the copyright holder and MFDI, and got them
signed by the other party. This was no easy task and took dozens of letters
and most of a year to do. Now MFDI sub-distributes these back to DSR,
and DSR pays MFDI one-half the net profits, excluding overhead and
personnel costs (which DSR donates). In early 1999, MFDI received
$5,663.27 from DSR for our share of the profits. 22
The supposed copyright owner (MFDI) is not the actual copyright owner. This
complicated relationship, unfortunately, places intellectual property and copyright
of local films funded by MFD at least three removes from the local filmmakers
themselves.
In the case of Neria, DSR Inc had exclusive rights to all distribution outside
Zimbabwe. MFD had exclusive rights to distribution in Zimbabwe. Though Neria
became the biggest Zimbabwean box-office success ever, beating Terminator II and
The Gods Must be Crazy, 23 the return on investment benefitted DSR Inc. Profits earned
by DSR first re-paid “over-budget expenses on MFDI's project and DSR’s project of
the production of the film”. Thereafter 10% of gross profits were paid to the director
Godwin Mawuru, 20% to MFD, the production agency, with the remaining 70%
staying with DSR to cover its expenses in promotion and distribution. Repayment of
the costs incurred by DSR in the setting up of MFD/MFDI was also to be shouldered
by Neria, subtracted from the remaining 70%. The conclusion can be reached that the
film industry of the 1990-2000 decade was Zimbabwean only in name. In truth, the
film industry was an industry in the image of MFD/DSR Inc. The 10% of gross
profits that Mawuru received amount to gross exploitation.
What sort of local film did the MFD intend to produce? The MFDI’s Steve
Smith stated “we are not just film makers, we do what we think will educate and
entertain the people and secondly we deliver social messages” (emphasis added). These
were not films but delivery vans for themed-slogans. The themed-slogan delivery
nature of MFD productions is illustrated in the case of Everyone’s Child and More
Time and Yellow Card. Everyone’s Child was conceived as an MDFT project and a
22
Media For Development International, Inc. (1998) Annual Report,
http://mfditanzania.com/images/pdf/annualreport1998.pdf Retrieved on 06-07-2014
23
Media for Development International (MFDI), (1991) Annual Report,
http://mfditanzania.com/images/pdf/annualreport1991.pdf Retrieved on 14-02-2010
12 | P a g e
Children Under Stress project spearheaded by Jonny Persey, which focused on
children affected by AIDS. Work on the film started in August 1994 when Persey
approached Riber and Ben Zulu of the MFDT with the idea of developing a
community based trading package that would revolve around a feature film
promoting the idea of empowering communities to care ‘effectively’ for AIDS
orphans.
Yellow Card, which is basically directed at male teenagers, portrays a version of
a journey ‘towards self knowledge’ and discovery for young males through
highlighting ‘teen pregnancy’ and ‘safe sex’. Yellow Card was produced with the help
of Pathfinder International as a follow up to Consequences. Pathfinder International’s
work in Africa focused on family planning and reproductive health services. As John
Riber pointed out:
Traditionally, these reproductive health issues have been a woman's
problem. They carry the baby and bear the burden. We have not taken the
traditional approach. Instead, we are talking to young men about their
role in child-bearing. There are a lot of surprises in this film – like in life.24
Pathfinder approached MFDI with a proposal for a film and the two organisations
agreed to work together.
More Time, which is mainly concerned with the fate of hormonal female
teenagers,25 seeks to educate teenagers like Thandiwe (Prudence Katomeni) about
the lesson that, with HIV/AIDS destroying so many youthful lives, ‘playing with
love’ may also mean playing with life itself. More Time explores the effects of AIDS
on teenage relationships and ends with a plea for ‘awareness and safer behaviour’;
Thandiwe is the teenage protagonist who begins it all with her search for a
boyfriend. More Time depicts the consequences of the naive and rushed decisions
made by teenagers through the characterisation of Pamela. It is through Pamela that
the consequences are made quite manifest. Pamela falls pregnant, drops out of
school, and tests HIV positive. Her baby dies of the virus.26
24
http://www.yellow-card.com/
In More Time, the hormones of all teenagers are literally running riot and the teenagers all become aloof and
incommunicative, especially to their parents, until the lesson is learnt in the end. The ‘eruptions’ in the
teenagers’ hormonal development are cited, in part, as the source of the vulnerability of girls and boys, hence
some teenagers like Thandi make a virginity pledge.
26
More Time ends on the usual NGO-film themed-sloganeering note, with all the teenage actors involved in the
campaigns for an ‘HIV/AIDS-free’ generation and Thandi making a virginity pledge. Even Pamela, though
already infected, gets some of her confidence back and joins her peers in the campaign. This manufactured plot
sequence explains why the National AIDS Control Programme in Botswana chipped in with a production grant
for the film, with a further commitment for a Setswana dub of the finished film. The closing shot of More Time
shows the ghetto in the image of an afflicted place, with many dangers for the youths. Unfortunately, the sources
of the problems are not deeply probed in this film or in other NGO-films.
25
13 | P a g e
Feature films such as Consequences, Neria, Everyone’s Child, Yellow Card, Choose
Freedom and More Time, and documentaries by Prudence Uriri (The Whisper), Sharon
Sopher (Praying for Rain) and Doe Mayer (Vukani Mukai Awakening), fall under the
category of “delivery van” films made by ‘order’ from international NGOs. These
NGOs largely focus on African tragedies, from famine to disease, wars and
droughts. Films such as Yellow Card, More Time and Consequences repeat mantra
fashion the simplistic “Practice safer sex or this will happen to you” slogan.27 The
mantra carries a veiled threat. Fear of disease, death or pregnancy is used to induce
so-called ‘good behaviour’. The 1990s decade, therefore, was characterised by
attempts by NGOs to influence, through simplistic delivery of slogans, the culture of
representation in general and on the culture of representing the behavior of
Zimbabwean men and teenagers in particular. Such attempts were defined by the
seeming passivity of African communities before the intervention of NGOs-based
communication strategies.
The NGO model of African filmmaking did not work. The NGO film was a
hermetically sealed ideological form suited to linear messaging and instructing. That
such a form could also entertain may have been due to the audiences’ abilities to
retrieve the surpluses of the text. Such a form, though newly imported by the
developmental NGOs, was actually part of an ideological tradition stretching all the
way to the 1930s. Fisher (2010: 112) has stated:
One of the reasons for the suspicion of these films is that the donorfunded films produced from the 1990s onwards demonstrate clear lines
of continuity – both in terms of production practices and narrative
content – with the colonial films produced by the British, in particular,
the development films produced through the Central African Film Unit
(CAFU), in which filmic narratives were written and produced for the
sole purpose of disseminating a given social message. Indeed,
contemporary development films redeploy many of the didactic
narrative strategies of their colonial forerunners, as will be
demonstrated in this article. Thus, the films emerge as the heir to the
colonial cinema represented by CAFU, in which the social message
supersedes every other aspect of the films’ production (Fisher 2010: 112).
Tsitsi Dangarembga has, interestingly, criticised her own role in Everyone’s Child. She
says that this type of film only exists where an NGO has an issue and wants to give
money to a production house to make a film about the issue:
27
The complication is that HIV is not spread merely as a result of teenage stubbornness. There are also social
factors such as poverty which, as long as they exist, make teenagers vulnerable to abuse and to manipulation.
14 | P a g e
And so the Media for Development Trust (MFD) made a lot of those. I
personally do not agree with that kind of filmmaking. As I was saying
before, I think the role of creative narrative is to engage the individual,
and that’s how the message comes across, through that engagement,
rather than as a message that engages the individual. For me, it’s the
wrong way around. And I think the fate of the development film might
bear that out, because in the beginning Zimbabweans were simply
happy to see films about themselves. But after a while, by the fourth film
or so, the novelty had worn off and people were not so pleased anymore
with the result. And so the development film has died a natural death,
partly because the NGOs are no longer funding Zimbabwe in the way
they did before and partly because Zimbabweans got fed up with
them.28
Dangarembga is, in this quote, predicting the death of the NGO film. A more
important question, perhaps, is: did the death of the social message film necessarily
mean that the Zimbabwean had at last been decolonised?
Apart from the work of NGOs, not much activity took place in the film
industry of the decade. Riber (2001) remarked that “Most productions being made in
Zimbabwe today are either advertisements or short, educational video programs for
donor funded projects”. Nevertheless, the 1990s decade also saw several isolated
instances of independent filmmaking (Jit; Flame; I am the Future), documentary (Soul
in Torment; Biko: The Untold Story) and co-productions (Aristotle’s Plot; Lumumba; Kini
and Adams). Interestingly, even some of the ‘independent’ films were funded by
outsiders, underscoring the atmosphere of dependence. Flame, for instance, was
funded by the European Union. Some local actors continued to be cast in foreign
productions shot on location. Running Wild, a 1998 TV film directed by Timothy
Bond set in the Hwange National Park about whites working to prevent elephant
poaching, features Munyaradzi Kanaventi as Isaac, Elijah Madzikatire as Abraham,
Patrice Chakanyuka as Poacher #1 and Dylan Wilson-Max as Poacher #2. Simon
Shumba (Pedlar), Walter Mparutsa (the Big Oaf) and Fidelis Cheza (Tapera) appear
in Idrissa Ouedraogo’s 1997 film Kini and Adams while Dylan Wilson-Max is cast in
Jean Pierre Bekolo’s Aristotle’s Plot (1996). Steven Chigorimbo is a First Assistant
Director in Aristotle’s Plot.
The issue of lack of return on investment, however, remained a nagging point
in the 1990s. The likes of Michael Raeburn (Jit), Ingrid Sinclair (Flame) and Mawuru
(I am the Future)29 did not turn a profit on their films. A majority of production
Rooney, Caroline, ‘Interview with Tsitsi Dangarembga’, Wasafiri Vol. 22, No. 2 July 2007, p.60
Mawuru’s I am the Future, produced by Kubi Indi, depicts a young woman (played by Mbira musician Stella
Chiweshe) journey from the rural areas to the big city to escape Zimbabwe's independence war in the 1970s.
28
29
15 | P a g e
companies in the country mostly focused on commercial work for advertising
companies. Production companies such as Mighty Movies,30 despite their name,
continued in the tradition of television with most of their work based in advertising.
The only advanced editing facilities available in the whole country were at Mighty
Movies (the Avid Media 1000, Three Machine Suite and the Linear Editing
Suite).There was also a marked shortage of film and video post-production and
sound facilities.
Basically, the decade was one of decline. The CFL, for instance, closed down.
ZANU PF politician and former minister of Information, Webster Kotiwani Shamu,
was the managing director of the Central Film Laboratories from 1985 and presided
over its collapse. Shamu was moved to CFL from Production Services. The CFL, at
one time the largest 35mm and 16mm film lab in Africa, is now a mere footnote in
the nearly eighty year history of the local film industry. In 2006 the premises were
taken over by the television production company, Mighty Movies. Many filmmakers
such as Riber (2001) and Nell (1998) mourn the passing of the CFL. The closure of the
CFL, however, symbolised the death of the 35mm dream. The costly film form did
not find many takers. In fact, as the decade approached fin de siècle, local feature film
production ground to a virtual halt. The “talented-tenth” film model pursued since
the 1940s was cost-prohibitive for the ordinary African, and few could afford
filmmaking.
Two significant events in 1997 were to bridge the 1990s with the 2000s. Firstly,
the Zimbabwe Film Festival (ZIFF) was established. ZIFF was Zimbabwe’s first such
festival. It sought to establish itself as the base of a local film industry supporting
both film production and film-going culture. Its motto, “a society that enjoys and
celebrates a dynamic film culture”, was based on the stated objective of developing
“filmmakers, artists and audiences” and supporting “independent film from
Zimbabwe.”31 Projects such as the “Short Film Project” were launched with this goal
in mind. As we will see in the next section, ZIFF became a lifeline for emerging
filmmakers in the difficult economic climate of 2000-2010.
ZIFF was followed by the establishment of the UNESCO-DANIDA funded
Zimbabwe Film and Video Training Project for Southern Africa, based in Harare.32
The “film school” was partly facilitated by Stephen Chigorimbo and Joel Phiri. The
UNESCO film and video training project ran a post NQF Level 4 course for between
four and eight weeks. Young independent filmmakers such as Tawanda Gunda
30
Mighty Movies was set up in 1986 by a group of media practitioners who included Paul Hughes, Geven Dore,
Tony de Villiers, Simon Bright, and the late Steve Moyo to service the television production industry. The
company was taken over by a Supa Mandiwanzira led consortium in 2002, precipitating a temporary collapse.
31
http://www.zifft.org/about-zifft/
32
Mozambican filmmaker Pedro Pimenta was the Chief Technical Adviser of the Project between 1997 and
2003
16 | P a g e
Mupengo who went on to make a mark for themselves in the post-200s decade were
trained at the film school.33 The Zimbabwe Film and Video Training Project closed in
April 2002 partly because its funding term had expired but also because of the
prevailing economic and political climate. In 1999, the government also set up a
National Film and Video Production foundation. This initiative, however, went
nowhere.
The 2000s
The political and economic climate of the 2000s, characterised by the
landmark land redistribution programme, political violence and unprecedented
hyperinflation, drove many NGOs from Zimbabwe. Most project funding lines
ceased. The MFD, for instance, relocated to Tanzania. Formal sources of funding for
filmmakers became even scarcer. The government’s attitude of non-involvement did
not change. With Zimbabwe’s peak monthly inflation going beyond millions,
virtually every sector of the Zimbabwean economy struggled. In a climate of
dwindling or no support, expensive forms of filmmaking based on celluloid formats
became untenable. The output from established filmmakers, with the exception of a
few such as Tsitsi Dangarembga, dwindled to between a single film or none at all in
the whole decade. Dangarembga and her production company Nyerai films
managed to continue making films that were a hybrid between the NGO-film and
the independent film. The production company Zimmedia, run by Simon Bright and
Ingrid Sinclair, produced several films under the Mama Africa series, using funds
from, among others, the European Union.34 Sinclair’s Riches (2001), a 26-minute
adaptation of Bessie Head’s novel A Question of Power, was part of the series.
Due to the cost-prohibitive climate, filmmakers sought viable alternatives.
Younger filmmakers related far more effortlessly to digital video, which was cheaper
and easier to use. It is in this climate that the 2000s became the decade of the low to
medium budget independent film. Independent micro-budget film production in
Zimbabwe emphasises creative improvisation, small crews and minimal kit
strategies that approximate to guerrilla survival. The major characteristics of the
independent film are format, budget, filmmaker profile and subject. The format is
almost always digital video, the budget generally shoestring, the filmmaker
invariably young (under 40 years of age) and the subjects of the films varied, a major
departure from the limited delivery van themed-slogans of NGO-films.
Gunda Mupengo, one of Zimbabwe’s emerging directorial talents, has more than a dozen directorial credits to
his name which include Tanyaradzwa (2005), Peretera Maneta (2006), Vengeance is Mine (2001), Painting a
Scene (2000), Special delivery (2001) and Masiiwa, a documentary about Zimbabwe’s famed sculptor, Dominic
Benhura.
33
34
Six African women directors were selected to participate in the compilation of the Mama Africa series. The
filmmakers were Fanta Nacro (Burkina Faso), Bridget Pickering (Namibia), Ngozi Onwurah (Nigeria), Zulfa
Otto-Salie (South Africa), Raja Amari (Tunisia), and Ingrid Sinclair.
17 | P a g e
The early basis for the independent film was set by the ZIFF’s Short Film
Project, which was conceptualised in 2000. The concept was intended to encourage
and promote film production in Zimbabwe in response to the increasingly visible
void in the Zimbabwean film industry. The exhibition arm of the SFP would ensure
screening of films in areas not traditionally served by the cinema screens in Harare
such as Mbare, Dzivarasekwa, Kambuzuma and Chitungwiza. Already there was a
growing awareness of the inefficacy of big screen ventures such as the Rainbow City
multiplex, opened in 1996, in taking cinema to every Zimbabwean. The first project
in 2001 involved the production of 2 short films under the auspices of ZIFF, the
Africa Script Development Fund, Ice Films and the UNESCO-Zimbabwe Film and
Video Training Project. Interested filmmakers, invariably young, were invited to
submit an original short film concept, after which ten semi-finalists attended a fiveday Script Development Workshop. Five winning scripts were selected for
production. ZIFF’s private sponsors provided filmmakers with the equipment to
make short movies to be shown as part of the festival. Beyond the festival the films
were also submitted to interested broadcasting agencies such as ZBC and other
festivals.
The ZIFF short film project became, in the hyperinflationary environment of
the time, a filmmaking oasis for emerging filmmakers. Brighton Tazarurwa, an SFP
participant, stated:
We are hardly making it as film makers we’ll have to make do with the
little we have and be very creative and resourceful with the other areas
that we find many difficulties in. Equipment - we are not that well
equipped, manpower we don't have that much skill anymore because of
brain drain but with what we have so far I believe we have a new crop of
film makers who are coming up. They've got the zeal and they are
growing in this environment.35
As proof, Tazarurwa made eight low-budget films in three years, including
Shungu,36 a ZIFF Short Film Project film. The ZIFF in general and the SFP in
particular was the meeting place for a new crop of creative local filmmakers who
would go on to permanently redefine the local film industry landscape. These
included Allan Muwani,37 Joe Njagu,38 Tawanda Gunda Mupengo, Patience
ITN Source (2007-11-07), “Zimbabwe’s film industry holds up in the face of tremendous obstacles”
http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist/RTV/2007/11/07/RTV1654107/?v=1
36
Shungu is about a young Zimbabwean girl from the village who runs away to the big city to escape from an
arranged marriage.
37
Muwani started off working in the art department, most notably in Lumumba, before working as a set dresser
and art director for the Short Film project prior to his directorial debut in 2006. Muwani’s Eva Adaptor won a
National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) for best production in 2007. Sadly, Muwani passed away in 2011.
35
18 | P a g e
Tawengwa,39 Solomon Maramba,40 Tafara Gondo,41 Rumbidzai Katedza,42 Yeukai
Ndarimani43 and Tazarurwa.
Alongside ZIFF’s work, the decade also saw the establishment of the
International Images Film Festival (IIFF), a local festival for feminist oriented films
started in 2002 by Tsitsi Dangarembga under the auspices of Women Filmmakers of
Zimbabwe (WFOZ).44 The situation regarding training for filmmakers, on the other
hand, continued to be in flux after the closure of the UNESCO school. While many
filmmakers are self-taught and informally taught, formal training alternatives such
as Global Academy and the Zimbabwe Film and Television School in Southern
Africa (ZIFFTESSA) are available for those deemed to have the necessary
qualifications. ZIFTESSA, which opened its doors in 2008 and is housed on the
premises of the now defunct UNESCO-Zimbabwe Film & Video Training Project, is
an arm of the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity offering two-year
diplomas in film and television production and directing.
THE PRESENT: The Rise of the “$1-for-2” Model
The current state of affairs in the Zimbabwean film industry presents a
complex picture represented by peaks, troughs and overlaps. Zimbabwean
filmmaking is emerging from the state of being the privilege of a few. Due to
38
Njagu, who has been involved in more than twenty productions to date and has directed short films such as
Curious Case of the Underwear and Nyaya DzemuHiace, went on to produce and direct signature feature films
such as Lobola (2010), The Gentleman (2011) (featuring Presley Chweneyagae) and Something Nice from
London (2013). Something Nice from London is a micro-budget adaptation of Petina Gappah’s short story about
Mary who, after the death of her brother, struggles to get his body back from the UK while dealing with an ever
growing crowd of mourning relatives flooding into her small house in Harare. Theatre production Rooftop has
plans to adapt Stephen Chifunyise’s ‘Wedding Night’ to the screen with Njagu as the director.
39
Patience Tawengwa’s filmography, which includes works in progress, has short films, short documentaries
and a feature film; Sinners, The Return, Phoenix Rising, Faith In the Accordion, Mangwanani, The Call,
Zimbabwe the Best Country and A Tangled Web
40
Maramba who directed Tariro, A Peace of Afrika which was shown at ZIFF 2008 as well as an SFP film,
Heart of Hearts, is one of Zimbabwe’s emerging animators, along with Nqobizitha Mlilo. Mlilo’s experimental
concepts include Duma and the toilet of Mashura and Ninja Bete, about a superhero cockroach.
41
Gondo, a prolific filmmaker who makes several dozen films a year, directed seven short films and one feature
film in 2009, going on to produce what may be Zimbabwe’s first ever DVD collection of short films titled Bags.
Bags, a short film based on a story that came out in the press about a man who was stealing young school
children’s satchels on their way from school, had been featured at ZIFF 2008. The films in the five-in-one DVD
set, such as Landlord’s Wife, 50 Dollars, Nothing, Tit for Tat and Bags, dissected everyday topics in the difficult
environment of the day. Gondo also made low budget features such My Brother’s Son and Fatal Joke.
42
Katedza, formerly a Distribution Manager at the Media for Development Trust who went on to become
Director of ZIFF, has directed short and feature films and music videos and now runs her own production
company known as Mai Jai Films. Katedza’s film credits include Danai (2002), Asylum (2007), Tariro (2008),
Big House, Small House (2009) and Playing Warriors (2011).
43
Ndarimani, who started in local dramas such as Studio 263 and Estate Blues, became part of the production
crew of the two short films Pamvura and Peretera Maneta as a Production Assistant before directing her short
film for SFP Akakodzera Ndiani? The film was nominated for best short film at Tsitsi Dangarembga’s
International Images Film Festival for women (IIFF) that year.
44
WFOZ is a women filmmakers’ body that was founded in 1996.
19 | P a g e
expense, filmmaking in Zimbabwe was a minority activity. The film Yellow Card, for
instance, was shot on 35mm, a cost-prohibitive format.45 Celluloid film belonged to a
local film industry built on the basis of the Central Film Labs. The collapse of the
CFL represented the fading of that particular project. Since the turn of the century,
filmmaking in Zimbabwe is no longer the exclusive task of a minority. They key was
“to demystify film-making and divest it of that almost magic aura that made it seem
that films were only within the reach of ‘artists’, ‘geniuses’, and ‘the privileged’.”
The film industry has generally been characterised by, in Solanas and Getino’s
words (1976), “lack of equipment, technical difficulties, the compulsory
specialisation of each phase of work, and high costs.” More importantly, there were
no viable distribution and exhibition platforms by which to reach most ordinary
Zimbabweans.
The Zimbabwean audience has, traditionally, been starved of both local and
international film. Zimbabwe Television (ZTV) weekly movies and reruns and the
mobile film units only sought to drip feed cinematic content to audiences. ZBC TV
films, in any case, are constantly disrupted by the constant power cuts which have
been systematically carried out since the early 2000s to this day. There is little
guarantee that any film will be viewed by an average of the target audiences. The
paucity of film entertainment opened doors firstly to Nollywood and then to piracy.
Beginning in the early 2000s, Nigerian video films caught the popular imagination,
plugging the gaps left by a virtually comatose film industry. Pirated DVDs selling
for 50c (popularly known as ‘dollar-for-two’) also quickly made their way onto the
streets in response to huge demand. Digital video filmmaking, and the type of
filmmaking practices inaugurated by the likes of Tawanda Gondo - making several
films per month – represents a solution to the visible hunger for local films.
Increased production volumes are essential.
The Zimbabwean government’s position on digitalisation is not clear. Digital
migration, if implemented, promises to offer increased platforms for local content.
There is no indication that the local film industry, as currently formally set up, will
produce enough to offset demand. The solution seems to lie, more and more, with
the clusters of independent filmmakers based in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru and
other small cities who are utilising digital video filmmaking forms. Arguably, the
distance between the cinematic institution and ordinary Zimbabweans has narrowed
considerably. On the one hand, the availability of affordable digital cameras and
editing software has meant that more people who would not have considered
filmmaking in 1980 or 1990 have now ventured into the industry. The expensive use
of 35mm film (and its variants) has been rendered largely superfluous.
45
The film, in fact, marked the first time MFDI had used 35mm in Africa.
20 | P a g e
There is little indication that Zimbabwe’s big screen cinema theatres, Rainbow
and Ster Kinekor, are a solution to issues of distribution and exhibition. Rainbow
Cinemas, taken over by the Supa Mandiwanzira led consortium which also took
over Mighty Movies, was the largest operator of movie houses in the country with
more than 10 theatres in Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare. The Rainbow City Cinema
in Harare was the first multiplex cinema in Zimbabwe, opening its doors in
September 1996. Since the takeover, Rainbow Cinemas showed an increasing
number of local movies such as Centre of Attraction, Tanyaradzwa, Sores of Emmanuel
and Lobola. However, little else has worked at Rainbow. The Rainbow City cinema in
Harare closed in February 2014. The cinemas, operated as City Cinemas under
Independent Pictures Private Limited, failed to pay utility bills, rentals and salaries
amounting to more than US$90 000.46 The Rainbow cinemas website47 has not been
working for seven years, from 2007 to this day. Rainbow’s main competitor, Ster
Kinekor is no different. The Ster-Kinekor website is, in 2014, still showing “coming
soon” posters of movies from 2005, 2008 and 2009 such as Memoirs of a Geisha,
Munich, Asterix at the Olympic Games and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. None of the
tabs are clickable. Attendances have dropped sharply. The 7 Arts theatres at
Avondale (Elite 100 and Vistarama) have been converted into clothing shops while
the downtown Liberty Cinema in Cameron Street, after being run down for years,
including rat infestation, became an Edgars clothing shop in March 2014.
The straight to DVD model, pioneered by the Nigerian film industry, has
made the “$1-for-two” film available to ordinary Zimbabweans. Basically, films are
sold on the streets for the price of US$1 each or discounted to US$1 for two discs.
With most big screen cinemas in a run-down state, and several theatres converted
into clothing shops and churches, and ZIFF and IIFF the only showcase events, the
street is currently the best movie distribution source and marketplace for most locals
in towns, cities and at rural growth points. A proactive relationship with the
‘shadow economies’ (Lobato 2012) of piracy is required, especially since piracy is not
likely to go away soon, if ever. A recent example is Gringo the Troublemaker (2013)
which was pirated after Enoch Chihombori, the producer, had decided to premiere it
in cinemas around the country. The piracy forced the producer to turn to the DVD
market. In another instance, trailers of Sabhuku Vharazipi 3 were downloaded from
YouTube by pirates who then re-edited the clips into an incoherent movie (Marwizi
2015). The pirated version was on sale on the streets before the original. Zimbabwe’s
relationship with piracy is unique considering that the ‘black-market’ was a major
source of survival for ordinary Zimbabweans between 2000 and 2010 when the
formal Zimbabwean economy collapsed in the face of hyperinflation. The “black
market”, as such, is an important part of the lives of the ordinary majority which
cannot afford pricey commodities. Basically, the black market is a legitimate way of
46
Meya, L (2014-02-14). Rainbow City Cinemas Close. Herald. http://www.herald.co.zw/rainbow-citycinemas-close/
47
http://www.rainbow.co.zw/
21 | P a g e
life. Part of the reason big screen cinemas are closing in Harare and other cities
appears to be due to their failure to deal or live with piracy.
Joe Njagu’s The Gentleman is an interesting example. Not only was it made on
a shoestring budget, but it reached local audiences through novel distribution by
airtime vendors. Njagu’s other film, Lobola, also focused on DVD sales, reaching
70,000 DVD sales in 2011.48 Njagu’s new project Salon.com, which he intends to use to
dramatise and explore various everyday social issues as seen from a hair salon, has
partnered with the publishers of Jewel Magazine to facilitate the distribution of the
comedy series along with the 20 000 copies of the magazine that are distributed each
month.49 The DVDs will also be available on the street for $1. Gringo the Troublemaker
is available online on pay-per-view basis and on DVD. The website, Zollywood,
dubbed “The home for Zimbabwean movies”50 adopts the IrokoTV model of
Nollywood films, making local films available around the world. The popular genre
of “filmed theatre”, represented by the Sabhuku Vharazipi and Bag Rabvaruka comedy
series, is largely available on the streets through pirated DVDs. Sabhuku Vharazipi
reportedly sold 55 000 copies, although the return was still small.51 Many filmmakers
have resorted to competing with informal traders on the streets to sell their films.52
Lloyd Kurima, popularly known as Mabla 10 in Bag Rabvaruka, is on record as saying
“We realised that the only way we could curb piracy was to do what the pirates
were doing: selling our products in the streets. Our hopes are that someday things
will get better” (Antonio, 2015).53 This is the “Un-Hollywood Production Paradigm”
of “producing cheaply, selling quickly” noted by Ajibade and Williams (2012) in the
case of Nollywood video films.
Generally, return on investment is still a pipe dream for most Zimbabwean
filmmakers; a problem compounded by an underperforming national economy and
repeated liquidity crunches. A continuously cited headache is piracy. David
Mubaiwa of Sabhuku Vharazipi claims that they got “virtually nothing” from their
first production (Mkwesha 2015).54 Chihombori, who says he spent about $48 000 on
the 2013 movie Gringo the Troublemaker, is yet to recoup his investment. Chihombori
48
Nehanda Radio (2011-06-07). Lobola film reaches 70 000 DVD sales
http://nehandaradio.com/2011/06/07/feature-film-lobola-reaches-70-000-dvd-sales/
49
http://www.zimbojam.com/articles/film-tv-theatre/tv-watch/item/749-joe-njagu-wants-to-tickle-your-funnybone
50
http://www.zollywoodzim.co.uk/?p=142872
51
Mkwesha, T. (2015-03-05) Sabhuku Vharazipi 3 ready, Newsday,
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2015/03/05/sabhuku-vharazipi-3-ready/
52
Newsday (2013-12-30) Musicians, filmmakers take to street marketing to counter piracy
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2013/12/30/musicians-filmmakers-take-street-marketing-counter-piracy/
53
Antonio, W. (2015-03-10) Bag Rabvaruka 4 released, Newsday,
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2015/03/10/bag-rabvaruka-4-released/
54
Mkwesha, T. (2015-03-05) Sabhuku Vharazipi 3 ready, Newsday,
https://www.newsday.co.zw/2015/03/05/sabhuku-vharazipi-3-ready/
22 | P a g e
says “I will be happy the day I know that I and my partners have managed to
recover our invested funds...This film took me more than five years to prepare and it
took someone just less than a minute to acquire and duplicate. It’s very painful and
it’s just not worth it for us.”55 Because they have to sell cheaply and quickly, most
filmmakers in Zimbabwe depend on volume to even get close to breaking even.
Most never break even. As such film making remains an out of pocket, hand to
mouth business, on the one hand, and a labour of love, on the other.
Compared to South Africa, state support of the film industry in Zimbabwe is
still way below paltry. The Zimbabwean government has not identified the film
industry as one of the catalytic vehicles for job creation and economic growth in its
newly reformed economic policy known as Zim Asset, launched in 2013. The
continued neglect of the creative industries in mainstream economic and trade
policy is itself must be flagged as a major policy flaw. Creative economies cannot
continue to be crumb-eaters at the national high table. Efforts, however, have been
underway to shake the government out of its comatose relationship with the film
industry. Two consecutive Zimbabwe Film Industry Stakeholders' Consultative
Indabas were held in Harare in 2010 and 2011. A committee, the Zimbabwe Film
Development Committee, was set up to look into film policy and to lobby the
government for an Act of Parliament that specifically addresses the film industry. 56
The Film Makers Guild of Zimbabwe was launched in 2010 as part of a two-pronged
effort to organise the film industry and pressure the government for film-friendly
concessions. Issues such as co-production agreements with African countries require
attention. Zimbabwe currently has no active co-production agreements with other
African countries. Not only are relevant and updated policy priorities sorely
overdue, but government needs to commit to putting in place effective long-term
fiscal measures to support Zimbabwean film.
A persistent issue is the dearth of film industry investors. Apart from small
grants from the Culture Fund, there is little else in the way of institutional funding.
This has meant that filmmakers have literally had to hustle, barter and beg for funds,
resources and equipment. There are no recoded cases of local films, outside NGO
films, financed by Zimbabwean banks and investors. Pathfinder International, for
instance, fund-raised money for Yellow Card from DFID, Air Zimbabwe, the Barclays
Bank and other sponsors. Local banks have little or no relationship with the local
film industry and generally never get involved. Not surprisingly, investors eager to
stand as surety also do not exist. Unlike in South Africa where broadcasters such as
SABC, Mzansi and eTV are the principal funders of television films, series and
documentaries, Zimbabwe’s broadcaster ZBC is bankrupt. Little or no finances have
NewsDzeZimbabwe (2013 July) “Gringo movie now available online”
http://www.newsdzezimbabwe.co.uk/2013/07/gringo-movie-now-available-online-and.html
56
The author was initially part of this committee that also included Tsitsi Dangarembga, Stephen Chigorimbo
and Rino Zhuwarara, the director of ZIFTESSA.
55
23 | P a g e
traditionally been raised through ZBC and its commissioning editors. Due to its
current financial collapse, ZBC has not been in a position to commission or pre-buy
any local films. If ZBC could solve its financial problems, it would be in a position to
get back to its public broadcasting mandate. At the same time, there is no studio
system in Zimbabwe. Where such a system exists, studios may commission scripts or
buy content for distribution.
The Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust, established in 2006 after the realisation
that “funding towards cultural activities in Zimbabwe was inconsistent and piecemeal”, 57 has provided grant funding to filmmakers since 2007. A major funder of the
Culture Fund is the Swedish International Development Cooperation (SIDA), which
has provided nearly a million dollars annually towards grants. In 2014 the Culture
Fund has earmarked funding for 17 qualifying projects out of 137, one of which is
the recently established Filmmakers Guild of Zimbabwe. Quite clearly, the Culture
Fund programme is essential, but far from adequate. Due to the fact that the whole
arts sector currently looks to the Culture Fund, a preponderant majority of
applicants are turned away. Furthermore, the fact that the Culture Fund is
dependent on outside funding renders its “independence” suspect. If funders pull
out, it has no other leg to stand on.
Despite the challenges, the volume of locally made independent Zimbabwean films
is peaking, as the number of new titles and genres on the Zollywoodzim.uk site
attest. ZIFF has bounced back from a liquidity crisis between 2008 and 2012,
managing to host a retrospective festival in 2013. An increasing number of
filmmakers are also experimenting with a proliferation of genres. Go Chanaiwa Go
(2010) directed by Von Tavaziva is a detective thriller serialised on ZBC before being
sold on the streets on DVD, along with Go Chanaiwa Go Reloaded sequels. Tavaziva
also directed the movie Simbimbino (2013) about a girl’s rags to riches story. Zambezi
(2013) is an epic story about the modern day search for ancient Munhumutapa
treasure. Blessing Chinanga’s Fields of Gold (2013) is a thriller starring Loreto (Tsitsi
Chiyangwa), an albino. Joe Njagu’s Something Nice from London (2013) is an
adaptation of a short story, based on dark humour. Sinners? (2013), directed by
Patience Tawengwa, adapts the real life saga of sperm-harvesting women criminals
who made headlines in 2011. Sinners?, which stars Rumbidzai Karize, breaks new
ground with its graphic and explicit scenes. A horror movie titled I want my Life Back
(2013) has even been made by first time filmmakers from the small town of Gokwe.
A flurry of features films have made their way onto screens. In 2014 the shooting of
Chinhoyi 7, an epic about the start of the Second Chimurenga in 1966, directed by
Canadian-based Zimbabwean film maker Moses Matanda, was completed. Sour
Milk, a dark comedy by Chris Maramba, premiered in 2014, as did Tariro (Marlon
Murape) a film about HIV and Dust & Fortunes (Justice Chapwanya) a drama about
57
http://www.culturefund.org.zw/
24 | P a g e
football and disability. The popular Bag Rabvaruka comedy series released its fourth
series in early 2015, while Sabhuku Vharazipi released its third.
CONCLUSION
Story-telling is not new to Africa. Story-telling through film settled into the
well established African story-telling traditions. In Zimbabwe, film grew out of the
needs of the colonial overlords. The struggle of the film industry has been to
decolonise. Two tendencies exist in the Zimbabwean film industry. The first is the
tendency towards the “specialist” film, so-called quality film which is symbolised by
the birth and death of the Central Film Laboratories. The second tendency is towards
a genuinely democratised filmmaking where filmmaking is no longer the work of a
talented tenth, but is driven by volume multiplying video technologies. The second
is trumping the first. The market is speaking, as the “dollar-for-two” model ensures
that the most popular movies are found on the street and are afforded by every
ordinary Zimbabwean.
One can count two vacuums since 1980. The first vacuum occurred after the
government relinquished direct support of the film industry in the late 1980s. The
second vacuum occurred in the early 2000s when NGOs abandoned the country en
masse. The second vacuum has been the most important as it has opened the way for
genuine independence in the film industry. The article has argued that the
Zimbabwean film industry is a work in progress. Since independence in 1980 the
industry has been in a search for itself. Thirty odd years of colonial heritages of
filmmaking, distribution and exhibition have not been fully replaced. Initially the
industry sought growth through state support, an ambiguous strategy that involved
growing the industry through marketing the country as a Hollywood location set.
Financial losses in the mid 1980s, coupled with World Bank and IMF austerity
measures, caused the state to rapidly retreat from the idea of a state-supported
national cinema. The 1990s were the decade of the NGO film. The NGO film was a
chalkboard for teaching message-heavy morality films.
The 2000s marked the end of a decade-old dominance of the NGO-film. The
end of the NGO-film paved way for the current state of affairs of coexistence where
middling state and NGO support of the film industry co-exists with independent
filmmaking. Until 2000, three sites drove production: television, donor organisations
and foreign film makers. This select club is no longer important factor in the
Zimbabwean film industry of today. The search for what Solanas and Getino (1976)
call a “decolonised camera” has, for now, stopped at the point of a somewhat uneasy
coexistence of models. The future, though, contains lots of unknowns. Issues of
funding, distribution and profitability are far from being solved substantively.
Genuine foundations for a sustainable local film industry that is neither state nor
NGO dependent are, however, being laid. Because of the opening up of the film
25 | P a g e
landscape, a genuine boom is now underway in the Zimbabwe film industry. Where
the film industry was formerly linear and hierarchical, it is now an interrelated maze
predicated on the dollar-for-two model.
26 | P a g e
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