By Farayi Mungoshi

“KUTI mafirimu edu aya achafa akasvika pana Neria here?” is the question I get most of the time when I tell people we are working on a feature film.
The doubt and pain written across their faces tells me they have no hope that such heights can ever be attained again and I don’t blame them as I find myself repeating the same line year in and year out without actually making the film.
In that 90s period we had the likes of Prudence Katomeni-Mbofana winning Best Actress Award at the Mnet Awards for her role in More Time, and Jesesi Mungoshi who won the Best Actress Mnet Award for her role as ‘Neria’, beating such greats like Hollywood Actress Whoopi Goldberg who had been nominated for the Best Actress Award for her role in the South African film Sarafina.
We recall such movies like Consequences, Neria, Everyone’s Child, Flame, Yellow Card and More Time and whenever people talk movies, their faces light up when they reflect upon these.
We are all so proud of these movies and we love terming this particular era in our film industry as the time Zimbabwe shone bright in that field and we competed with others on an international level.
Sadly what most of us don’t realise is that while Zimbabweans acted and worked in these movies, the movies themselves were not actually Zimbabwean.
Yes they were Zimbabwean stories, some written by Zimbabweans and acted in by Zimbabweans, but the movies were not owned by Zimbabweans.
When we look at all the movies I mentioned above you would find that the bulk of them were produced by John and Louise Riber for Media Development Trust, they were not Zimbabwean.
This is not to say we did not benefit from their expertise.
During this time people like Godwin Mauru (director of Neria) and Joel Phiri made us proud.
Phiri produced Flame together with Simon Bright which was directed by Ingrid Sinclair.
Indeed, the industry then seemed like it was unstoppable with UNESCO training programmes running all the time at Production Services and other international production companies coming in to shoot their films here.
For example, Cry Freedom (starring Denzel Washington as Steve Biko) was shot on location in Zimbabwe, even King Solomon’s Mines starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone.
While these are big names in the industry coming into the country not everybody in the industry at home was happy.
“Funding yacho inongopihwa varungu chete, sekunonzi ndivo vega vanozvigona!” I recall a colleague of my parents saying at one point.
I was still young, but I knew what they were talking about.
They had the resources and got most of the funding too leaving most of us either looking for a job with them or ‘trying’ to do a movie on our own which, as history shows us, only a few managed to.
“Vari biased,” someone else said.
I have had to rewind to see how true this was.
I recall only one black-owned feature, Matters of the Spirit by Norbet Fero. More came in later in our film history.
Now I am much older and I find myself scratching my head questioning, “What went wrong?”
Where did we go wrong to end up here where we have microwave movies which look like home videos, done without a script?
Without mentioning names of films most would understand what I am talking about.
Our old ZBC dramas are way better than some of the films we are watching, but then again can we blame today’s filmmaker for trying?
No we can’t.
A father or teacher teaches a child and in turn that child teaches his own and so it goes, what happens when the father runs away from home?
Who teaches the child?
After the training and experience filmmakers gained during the years we term as the fruitful years in film, what then happened?
Where did they go so that they can pass on the button stick to the next generation in order for us to remain relevant and competitive in that field?
It is one thing to obtain a degree in filmmaking, but it is another shooting a film.
You would find that most left the country when the sanctions came into effect.
There are many filmmakers from that era now based in South Africa and some have actually made it to Hollywood.
If they can only look back I believe we would be able to achieve the heights most think we once attained, and this time it will be us.
Film has the power to change people’s thinking and can help us think more positively about ourselves and where we are going.