Chronicle Editor
Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
The crime of poaching is heinous to some but not many know its intricacies and how it affects the people who are involved on both sides of the legal divide.
Gonarezhou: The Movie, a locally produced movie that was premiered in Bulawayo, Harare and Masvingo this past weekend gave insight into this.
Ster-Kinekor movie theatre in Bulawayo was a hive of activity on Friday night when the movie premiered as part of the movie’s cast –Eddie Sandifolo (Zulu), Tendaiishe Chitima (Thulo) and Tammy Moyo (Sarah) graced the event and mingled with the who is who of Bulawayo.
The movie is an anti-poaching awareness film written and directed by Sydney Taivavashe. The film that was inspired by 300 elephants that were killed in Zimbabwe’s biggest nature reserve by poachers, was produced last year in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. The poachers used cyanide to poison watering holes at Hwange National Park in 2013.
At the end of the movie, one gets to learn of the deadly war that ensues in Zimbabwe’s national parks between game rangers and poachers and how human-animal conflict plays out in the rural areas.
Why are animals more important than the humans?- is one of the questions asked in the film? One is reminded about a story where a man killed a leopard that wanted to kill him. He set a trap for the feline which he said ate one of his goats. He was subsequently ordered to pay ZimParks US$20 000 as compensation for trapping and killing the animal.
Besides the human-animal conflict, the need to get out of abject poverty will drive a good person to crime, in this case poaching, a subject which is tackled in the movie. Also, there is a human trafficking element in the movie.
The movie follows the life of Zulu, a man who is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Abandoned by his father when he was an infant, he lives with his sick mother in the rural areas. He is told to find money to take her to hospital but however, his mother dies before he can raise the required money. Zulu turns to poaching.
This depicts the daily struggles that people go through in rural Zimbabwe where access to health care is a headache when one does not have the money. Zulu has dreams to be a musician with his group, fronted by Sarah (Tammy Moyo), but because of lack of opportunity, they are stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty in rural Zimbabwe.
People join crime for different reasons, mostly because of greed and wanting to make a quick buck, but for some like Zulu, he was pushed into it because of poverty. The illegal trade (of ivory and Rhino horn) was too lucrative and the offers were hard, in fact impossible to ignore, if one puts themselves in Zulu’s shoes.
Crime does not pay but it leaves a wake of destruction on both sides of the legal divide.
Besides the storyline that was easy to follow, what Gonarezhou: The Movie showed is that there is a film community in Zimbabwe that is ready to turn it into an industry. An industry should be churning out many quality movies regularly but Zimbabwe is not.
But, with productions like Gonarezhou: The Movie, it is encouraging that there are productions like this that can be released from Zimbabwe. – Follow on Twitter @bonganinkunzi
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter