Ben Mahaka

Actor/Director

Ben Mahaka was born in 1968 in Chipinge and shot to fame playing the role of shady businessman cum playboy Tom Mbambo in Zimbabwe’s first-ever soapie Studio 263 that Premiered in 2002.

Mahaka featured in Yellow Card Movie a 2000 movie about a rising young soccer star who finds himself caught between the conflicts of school, peer pressure, his sport, his family, falling in love, and the consequences of a one-night stand.

His big break however came with Studio263 a soapie about life in Harare which made history by becoming one of the few locally produced series to be aired on international television channels such as M-net. Mahaka appeared in over 600 and directed another 300 episodes of the soapie which ran until 2007 when it was pulled off the air by Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) due to contractual disputes with the producers.

Ben then had other directorial stints with other projects including Gringo the troublemaker and Battle of the Chefs. In 2011, Mahaka worked with a musician Hope Masike and directed the video for the song “Tioneiwo Shewe“. In September 2014, Mahaka worked with a musician cum comedian Kapfupi in a television commercial.

In 2018 Mahaka’s short film Ruvimbo’s Wedding won the National Arts and Merit Awards (NAMA) in the Outstanding Screen Production (Short Film) category. The Film was also a finalist at the Lake International PanAfrican Film Festival (LIPFF) in Kenya in 2017. Mahaka joined other Zimbabwean actors including the late Lazarus Boora, Charlene Mangweni, Stella January, Nothando Nobengula, Eunice Tava, Tinopona Katsande, and UK-based Abraham Kausa, in the movie Lord of Kush produced by Tendai Maduwa.

Mahaka recently created Gaza, a production set and made in Chipinge which explores topical issues that are familiar to local audiences, including child marriages and gender-based violence in urban and peri-urban settings. The production is shot in Gaza Township, in the town centre, and growth points around Chipinge.

Ben has contributed immensely to the development of Film in Zimbabwe as an actor, producer, and director. He has pioneered in taking filming to remote areas in Zimbabwe by establishing a creative centre in his home town Chipinge, training both cast and crew members to shoot the series Gaza one of the first to make it on National Television from outside Harare and Bulawayo using his native language ChiNdawu. — NACZ.