The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
AMA 2K, a short film which premiered in December last year, has cemented its spot as one of Zimbabwe’s most successful web productions, after reaching the significant of 500 000 views milestone last week. Written by Melissa Mpofu alongside Zoleka Fuyane and produced by Raisedon Baya, AMA 2K is a product of Amplifying Girls Voices through Digital Arts, an Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo innovation.
Amplifying Girls Voices uses digital media to empower young women and girls, address challenges they face as well as build their confidence so they are able to speak for themselves. It also seeks to amplify their voices against any form of abuse directed at girls and young women through short films, podcasts and an online magazine
Raisedon Baya
In AMA 2K, “the pool of choices is large for young Thembi and her peers,” the short film’s synopsis reads. “How do they make sure they’re making the right ones, or it’s just a gamble of learning from experience. We give you a glimpse of generation Z everyday lies, choices and dilemmas.”
Celebrating the milestone, producer Raisedon Baya said that the triumph of a production helmed by young women was an illustration of the fact that there was considerable hunger for local content among Zimbabweans at home and abroad. “For us, it’s not just about AMA 2K but also Amacala because it is also sitting on more than 490K views on YouTube. The only difference is that Amacala now has a part two which also has more than hundred thousand views and so we can say it has also breached 500K. I think the excitement is coming from the fact that we have people looking for that kind of content and with it, we are able to attract viewers and audiences,” he said.
While AMA 2K is a runaway web success, Baya said that the success of the film had brought some of the country’s burgeoning TV stations to their doorstep, as they sought content that brought numbers to their more traditional platforms. “What it has done for us is that because of the success that it has enjoyed, we have had enquiries from TV channels in terms of either doing series along those issues so that they can license something that runs on their platforms,” he said.
Ama 2K film scene
However, Baya said that while they had managed to get the attention of TV stations, YouTube had proved to be a useful platform, helping a relatively young cast and crew reach millions of eyeballs in Zimbabwe and beyond. “So, what it means is that we need to invest more in the kind of productions that people find resonance with and we also need to invest in the talent that is there on offer. We are telling our own stories and we need to invest in the telling of those stories because we have to spread them as far and as wide as possible.
We want these stories to reach a global audience and so far, using YouTube has been very useful in achieving that. It has been a very useful platform and our thinking is that the more stories of that kind that we have, the more audiences we will be able to pull and consequently, the more opportunities we will have, which is something that is happening now,” he said.
