Zimbabwe is endowed with a lot of gifted filmmakers, but one challenge for most of them is the high production cost that they have to deal with whenever they decide to embark on a new project.
This high production cost buttressed by very little support from the corporate sector, has caused many amazing projects to be shelved in their pilot stages and never see the light of day.
However, for a few fortunate filmmakers, the production cost nightmare is set to be a thing of the past, as new kid on the block, DStv’s, Zambezi Magic has revealed that it will start commissioning films from Zimbabwe.
This news comes at a time when many local filmmakers had lost hope in the channel, which had initially hinted it would be commissioning works from Zimbabwe when it was launched back in the winter of 2015, only to backtrack on their promise due to financial issues.
Last year the channel’s head, Addiel Dzinoreva highlighted that the high cost of production that filmmakers in the country had to incur was making it difficult for his channel to purchase their productions in an article in the Sunday Mail.
“Zimbabwean producers always want money upfront as they cannot create content with their own resources because of high production costs. Also, their need for much higher payments than other countries makes acquisition of Zimbabwean content expensive. We have met and heard from producers who have pitched some great concepts, which we simply cannot afford at this stage. But we will continue to work with the producers in Zimbabwe to source content and we hope the coming year will see substantial progress in this regard,” said Dzinoreva in the Sunday Mail article.
Early in June 2017, rumours started circulating that Zambezi Magic would now start commissioning films from Zimbabwe and Dzinoreva confirmed this when contacted by the Zimbo Jam team.
“Yes this is true. We are commissioning low cost films from producers in Harare and Bulawayo. We are working on more ideas behind the scenes…keep watching the channel,” confirmed Dzinoreva.
