Ungochani, a Zimbabwean documentary about homosexuality, will screen at the Bristol African Film Festival in the UK in October. It also screened in May this year at Afrykamera in Poland.
The 43-minute film was completed in 2010 and premiered the same year at the International Images Film Festival for Women in Harare in November.
It is produced by Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe / Nyerai Films and directed by Porcia Mudavanhu, a former media studies student at the Harare Polytech and an active member of Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe.
Nyerai Films’ Olaf Koschke said that the film was shot over a period of three months. “In the current polarised environment in Zimbabwe, many people are afraid to speak out or comment on controversial issues such as homosexuality. So the film needed a lot of research (and persuasion) to find the right protagonists with interesting and in-depth views on the issue.’
The film was self-financed by the producers. Mudavanhu also relied heavily on the support from her colleagues as well as her husband to make the film happen. (Report by Martin Chemhere)
