By Rhoda Mandaza

THIS year on April 18, Zimbabwe will be celebrating her 34th birthday.
A few days after that South Africa, our sister nation, will be celebrating their 20th birthday!
As I look back over the last 20 years where our two nations have been so closely involved with each other whether for better or worse or good or bad, I find myself feeling very envious and jealous of the fact that they are miles apart in terms of their overall progress in the creative sector.
The month of April is equally very significant for the film industry of Africa and the overall promotion of African cinema and the need to tell our own stories remains a challenge for us.
Indeed, other nations have made good progress and Zimbabwe that once was the leader of the pack has suddenly become somewhat non-existent.
Is it not time for us to seriously rally together and lobby government for meaningful support?
In 2009, I was part of the team put together by the secretary-general of FEPACI, Mme Seipati Bulane Hopa, to re-launch the campaign to motivate and lobby African governments to support the setting up of an African film fund.
At the time, the team was made up of activists and long standing practitioners in the film industry drawn from all over the continent.
As I think back to that time, I am compelled to establish some kind of discourse about the creative sector of our country.
Recently I was invited as a guest on a local radio station and the issue of our identity came into the discussion.
It was actually quite disturbing that as the conversation evolved, there were mixed feelings, emotions and thoughts on the issue.
The questions therefore begs to be asked; 34 years into our democracy do we really have an established brand of anything creative that we can call Zimbabwean?
What came after Neria in 1994?
Yes we had Flame, we had I am the Future, Tanyaradzwa, Lobola and many others and yet when we talk of a Zimbabwean story that resonates internationally, it is still Neria that comes to mind!
At the time of this lobby for the African film fund which was being initiated jointly by the AFA and FEPACI, we used the UNCTAD Creative Economy Report as a reference.
Allow me to share with you an extract from that report.
“The UNCTAD Creative Economy Report 2008 looked at ‘The Challenge of Assessing the Creative Economy: Towards Informed Policy Making’. This report which was initiated by the partnership between UNCTAD and the UNDP Special Unit for South-South Cooperation was set as a pioneer example of work being done to ensure an effective way of advancing policy coherence and enhancing the impact of international actions in the area of the creative economy and creative industries.
“The same report stipulates that creative industries are among the most dynamic sectors in world trade and reports that over the period 2000 – 2005, international trade in creative goods and services experienced an unprecedented average annual growth rate of 8,7 percent.
“The value of world exports creative goods and services reached US$424,4 billion in 2005 representing 3,4 percent of total world trade according to UNCTAD.
“Creative industries constitute a vast heterogeneous field dealing with the interplay of various creative activities ranging from traditional arts and crafts, publishing, music and visual and performing arts to more technology-intensive and services-oriented groups of activities such as film, television and radio broadcasting, new media and design.” – (UNCTAD Summary Creative Economy Report 2008 pg13).
The same report makes the following reference to Africa. (UNCTAD Summary Creative Report 2008 pages 14-15)
“The large majority of developing countries are not yet able to harness their creative capacities.
“Africa’s share in global trade of creative products remains marginal at less than one per cent of world exports.”
So here we have it … in 2005, the value of world exports from the creative sector was pegged as at a whopping of US$424 billion!
And sadly in that same report we are told that Africa barely reaches one percent of that.
How is that possible, I asked myself then and I ask myself now?
And I equally implore you all to ask yourselves that.
We all know that Africa’s artefacts are in an ‘obscene’ abundance all over this planet and yet we cannot account for even one percent of the total value of exports!
During my travels on the continent over the past five years, I have witnessed the thriving industry that we all love to hate called ‘Nollywood’.
I have begun to watch with pain and trepidation as the South Africa film industry grows from strength to strength.
I was part of the AMAA Film in A Box training programme held in Malawi in 2013 where 11 short films emerged, from a country that really has only just began to make films.
The Last Fishing Boat has won awards and accolades on the international circuit.
Where are we Zimbabwe?
It is time that we introspect and ask ourselves what we are doing.
In 2000, I had a conversation with some leading arts practitioners in the Visual Arts and Craft sector suggesting that we do some kind of inventory or research into seeing just how much of our art works are being exported or taken out of the country.
Do we have an audit of what we have produced for export in our country?
We know that we have markets all over the country and foreigners and tourists are always going away with memorabilia from their great African or Zimbabwean expeditions.
Frankly, it’s a rather scary thought when I try to recall all the people I know who have come into various parts of this Southern African region in fact and bought containers worth of artefacts.
I am actually quite excited that our National Art Gallery will be hosting a major Visual Arts and Crafts Exhibition later this year and from what I gather the overall mission is to see what we have in the sector at this point in time.
Should be interesting to see the outcomes of this.
Is it not therefore time for us to be then taking stock across the board, on our whole creative sector?
Music, film, dance, theatre, fine art , craft art and more, 34 years down the line where are we on the world stage as far as our creative industry goes.
How much revenue is coming in to the country as the result of exports if any?
I look forward to hearing and sharing further on this and seeing what comes out of this discussion.