adminBrenda Phiri Entertainment Reporter
Being a filmmaker in Zimbabwe is for those with thick skin. Hard work alone is not good enough — the short of it is that you have to bring your imagination to life with the least resources.
One has to be a miracle worker! And the icing there is that pirates are the ones that cash in on the sweat. But you have to keep it together and do it over again anyway.
A 21-year-old filmmaker from Masvingo, Proud Sigauke, knows that better.
He, together with director Donovan Takaendesa are the brains behind an upcoming epic film, “The Zimbabwean Warrior”, that will première at Ster Kinekor Eastgate on August 15.
Its trailer confirms the movie is a brilliant piece of art that explores areas that others shy away from.
Forget “Game of Thrones” or “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the movie is a must-see that will take viewers back to a point in our culture when life was not really simple.
“The movie tells the story of a 19th century kingdom that is turned up side down. It was shot at different sites in Masvingo from 2013. Because of a series of misfortunes and scarcity of funds we finished it this year,” said Sigauke, who wears the cap of producer and actor in the 90-minute film.
Takaendesa,who is also the script writer, plays the leading role of Zibwe, a young prince who is tricked into committing a heinous crime.
He is forced to flee the kingdom with fierce warriors in hot pursuit.
With an instruction to bring back his head by a traitorous adviser to the late king, the warriors eventually catch up with the lad.
Their biggest mistake is leaving him to die deep in the forest.
As fate would have it, he lives to avenge his traitors.
Of course, the film is complete with shots in an untapped scenic forest, excellent use of the native Shona language and animal skin clothes to make the movie believable.
Anomalies are, however, seen in scenes where the 19th century king is clean shaven. His queen also has colourful eye shadows and lipstick and the most disappointing is a village girl whose eyebrows seemed to be “vaulted”.
And the explanation:
“We had many challenges in the production of the movie. Like I mentioned earlier, the film took too long to complete and during that time it was hard to dictate such things to the cast members who had volunteered their services,” said Sigauke.
“Some would come for shoots with Mohawk haircuts and others with expensive hairstyles that we could not force them to remove them. We did side jobs to raise the money for shooting so we had no fixed timetable for shooting which made it difficult for the cast to adequately prepare.”
Sigauke added that other challenges also came in the form of improper language use as some of the cast would constantly throw in English words.
This prompted them to consult the services of dialogue director and together with intensive editing, they almost came out of it clean as a whistle.
“We also feel that we would have come out with a better film if things had worked according to plan. Our original plan was to incorporate a Ndebele tribe in the second village where the prince in the movie escapes to. Because we could not afford to travel to Bulawayo we had to make do with what we had,” he said.
“And also, we tried in vain to secure symbolic shooting sites like Great Zimbabwe.”
The struggles continue as the group is now in Harare to market their movie.
They are currently selling tickets for the upcoming premiere which range from $5 (ordinary for individuals), $10 (individual VIP) and $15 (VIP couple).
They are also appealing for sponsorship to foot the bill of their month- long stay in the capital where they are promoting their project.
Online Reporter