“Winning the NAMA award has surely elevated my status as a filmmaker. I am sure getting influential people in my next projects will be much easier. People want to be associated with winners and this will go a long way in helping me achieve what I want as a filmmaker,” said first time NAMA winner, Sydney Taivavashe.
“I’m really grateful to be honoured at national level. I have been making films for the past 10 years and I have never gotten anything really tangible from it, so it is nice to be rewarded for my efforts,” he added.
Taivavashe scooped his debut NAMA gong with his film, ‘Seiko’ which came tops in the Outstanding Screen Production-Short Film category.
The ecstatic filmmaker revealed that his currently working on an anti-poaching film project.
“At the moment I’m working on an anti-poaching awareness project titled, ‘Gonarezhou’. We’re still looking for partners but I can assure you it’s a very big project that will be a game changer for African films,” he revealed.
Taivavashe has however questioned NAMA adjudication, sharing the same sentiments with fellow colleagues who thought ‘Muzita raBaba’ was not supposed to win the Outstanding Screen Production-Full Length Film award.
“I honestly felt that ‘Muzita raBaba’ was supposed to be nominated with other TV shows because it wasn’t supposed to be selected in the feature film category, let alone win it. It’s a TV show that won in the wrong category. It’s a brilliant production but the adjudicators got it all wrong on this,” he said.
