The Sunday News
Vincent Gono
THERE is no doubt that the film sector as an important appendage of the cultural industry plays a pivotal role in the development discourse of any country. Apart from creating employment for thousands in many developed and developing
countries, the film industry is an important driver of the country’s culture and ideology. It can be used as a vehicle through which the country packages and delivers the national ethos and values.
In Zimbabwe, however, until very recently — thanks to the transformation from the obsolete analogue television to digital satellite television, there was no film industry to talk of. What was there was only a hotchpotch of fragmented artistes who could hardly be called an industry, just like a stake of timber cannot be called a ship.
Not that the television screens in the country’s homes were blank, they had something but that something was not local except for a few programmes. A majority of Zimbabwean viewers would only tune in to the sole national television broadcaster – ZBCtv when it was news hour just to get a grasp of what was happening in the country otherwise they had other options of entertainment, never mind that they were alien — very foreign and giving nothing short of foreign programmes that had little connection with their life experiences — their culture.
All what they longed for was something that was not ZTV, something that was not boring, repetitive and shown in residual, showery, cloudy and poor pictures that could change to black and white whenever they feel like while the sound quality was often pitiable and punctuated by bleeps of no sound at all or a continuous deafening noise.
In terms of quality programming ZBC was a monumental failure, it has been giving viewers old foreign films that have no relevance in the country’s generation of viewers in a repetitive format.
Yes, people always want something they connect with. The foreign films that were beamed in the country in the late 90s such as Santa Barbara and Miami Sands and many others were very popular and interesting because of the yawning gap in the country’s film industry — the complete invisibility of any such local world class competition.
What the country has only managed to produce are dramas such as Mukadota, Paraffin, and others while Yellow Card, Neria and Jiti still rank among the country’s top movie films.
And like in the food industry, the film industry is one area where developed countries such as America have maintained a hegemonic control of what most developing countries watch hence influencing the countries’ culture in a big way thereby Americanising developing countries’ cultures.
The country therefore needed to free itself from the influence of dominant cultures taking over national culture and defining the societal values by decolonising the film industry and make it a vehicle of local cultures.
Although the Government was slow to the process, filmmakers laboured under difficult and frustrating circumstances trying in their fragmented and unrecognised position to produce films with nothing coming from the Government.
Fortunately, however, the Government was jolted to reality before it was too late and is now taking film production with vigour and seriousness as never before. In sound economies and in developed countries the film industry is one important sector that Governments have vested interests in because of its strategic influence as one of the mass media products.
Mindful of its power, most Governments fund and control the film industry. That has not been the case with Zimbabwe more so because there was no industry to talk about.
But with the digitalisation process gathering pace, and the Government looking very determined to catch up and bridge the gap that was created by its lack of seriousness in funding and controlling the film industry — choosing instead to let the country’s culture be Americanised, a number of positives are set to be achieved.
Digitalisation, apart from providing clear visuals and better sound quality through the use of high definition television quality standards will lead to the revamping and revitalisation of the local film industry that will be funded by the Government through the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services.
It will create employment to thousands of people who will be doing various film productions as the main focus. According to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Cde George Charamba at a digitalisation seminar in Bulawayo on Thursday it was to ensure the gap that currently exists in the country’s local film sector was closed.
Digitalisation will also spell an end to monopolistic abuse of the country’s population by ZTV through liberalising of airwaves as six more private television stations will be licensed, giving film producers and others in the arts industry a whole range of stations to choose from to sell their products.
This will create competition and prices will respond to the market demands as opposed to artistes forced to take what is on the table because they have nowhere to take their productions to. This will also correspond and be reciprocated by the need to produce quality products.
It will also expand the television transmission network to ensure the provision of digital television services throughout the country. It also avoids transmission interference between countries. Cde Charamba said owing to the country’s dormant film industry, Zimbabwe had a lot of rich but unexplored historical narratives from where filmmakers could draw their storylines and synopsis. He gave examples of the story of the protracted liberation struggle, the land issue and other issues that could be turned into real films that have a direct connection with the local populace.
“I know there is public anger over ZBC. The public broadcaster has been failing but we are saying let’s look beyond ZBC. Yes, it will remain our public broadcaster but the days of its monopolistic abuse are over. We are going to license six private television stations and another six television stations that will of-course fall under ZBC.
“So what we are saying is that film producers will not be obliged to sell their productions to ZBC only as is the case now. The Ministry (Information, Media and Broadcasting Services) through the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) will look at the films, approve and fund them from where the filmmaker will choose which station offers better payments to take their productions to.
“The funding will be an entitlement given to every filmmaker in Zimbabwe and will not by any means be used to compel filmmakers to sell their productions to ZBC. In terms of narratives we are one country with a very rich historical narrative that has not been explored so there are plenty of stories to choose from that define who we are as a people, our values so that the world out there understands where we are coming from as Zimbabweans,” he said.
Cde Charamba said the Government was committed to making sure the digitalisation process kicks off with local content as it moves with the tide of decolonising the film industry and giving it the impetus.
He said he did not want the country’s content producers to meet world standards but to set new world standards, adding that his ministry would do everything in its power to ensure all the requirements were provided. Content producers, he said, should compile a list of the equipment they needed so that they could be offered rebate when importing them.
He said studios would be set in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Masvingo, Mutare, Gwanda, Bindura, Lupane, Bindura and Victoria Falls to decentralise film shooting, adding that the size of the studio would differ in terms of equipment and size of the production.
Cde Charamba urged filmmakers to organise themselves and put in place an association so that it would be easy to trace and account for the equipment that the ministry was going to provide. He also pleaded with the film schools to be flexible enough and introduce short term crash programmes that would be discipline specific to expedite the horning of skills in different film production areas.
Cde Charamba said people should not expect films that are perfect as soon as possible but requested for patience saying Rome was not built in a day. He said the country should always look back and trace the footsteps, the milestones and the landmarks that tell a story of evolution from mediocre to perfection.
Information, Media and Broadcasting Services acting Minister Cde Prisca Mupfumira said in a speech read on her behalf by the ministry’s Deputy Minister Cde Thokozile Mathuthu that the emphasis was on local content with foreign content coming only to add to a little flavour and terrestrial exposure to the country’s film industry. She said in that vein, Government was ready to grow the local content industry to greater proportions and to ensure the filmmakers were continuously supported.
“We migrated from analogue television to digital on 5 January 2016. We want to make sure variety in terms of local content production is guaranteed. We no longer want TV stations with the same boring and monotonous programmes. The greater Zimbabwe story needs to be told and we will only allow foreign productions in the country to flavour our variety and to add terrestrial exposure. We will also ensure that the content industry in the country is grown to greater proportions,” she said.
She also said the Government was going to ensure that digital compliant equipment would be provided to the filmmakers so that there were not going to be excuses of not producing local content that connected with the Zimbabwean people’s life experiences and culture.
