JONATHAN MBIRIYAMVEKA
The 2023 edition of Zimbabwe International Film Festival will be held from 13 to 18 November 2023 under the theme “ASPIRATION5”, the first in The Africa We Want Season of festivals the organization plans to run.
According to the organisers, Zimbabwe International Film Festival Trust, the theme was inspired by Aspiration 5 of AGENDA 2063: The Africa We Want.
The ASPIRATION5 calls for an Africa with a strong cultural identity, common heritage, shared values, and ethics.
In an interview Daves Guzha, the curator of ZIFF 2023, said going forward the festival will go Pan-African in form and content.
“What basically happened it’s not just for this year as we move forward, ZIFF has now changed direction into 100 percent pan African film festival. Previously, I think it would focus on European films, American films, that kind of thing but there was some inconsistency that’s what we figured out.
“That inconsistency lay in the fact that we keep on saying let’s promote our own images people must actually feed on our own images but at the same time when it comes to content which is very visual, which really impacts on our every own survival and our own thought process which influences our narratives we brought films from Europe,” Guzha explained.
“So based on a few aspects when you look at Francophone Africa which is Espacode which is the oldest film festival on the African continent, also outstanding in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso then when you look at Arab speaking Africa the Carthage film festival we then reflected, I mean ZIFFT and said no we must change to reflect where the African continent is going and where we want it to be.
“So, a number of factors that are being aligned to the big agenda and you are aware of agenda 2063 the African Union’s Agenda 2063. It came into existence in 2013 so it’s a 50-year plan that tries to give direction to where Africa will end up as but key to all of that, what really informed us Africa right now I don’t know if it has changed but we want to believe that seven of the fastest growing economies are all resident in Africa.”
He continued: “Out of the 1,4 billion people Africa is developing the fastest growing middle class huge, obviously points out to consumption patterns so we took a stand, let’s have our own content within the continent that reflects who we are as a people that assists us in restoring pride of place as a people and that’s why we deliberately selected that theme.
“The theme for ZIFF 2023 is Aspiration number 5 and we deliberately put it like that as Aspiration5 so people can ask questions what it is. And for us Aspiration number 5 is the one that really speaks through to who we are, to what we want and it highlights the issues of heritage, it highlights issues of our culture and our African identity so it puts us there.”
This come after 23 years of presenting the ZIFF with an intrinsically Zimbabwean experience including the Zimbabwe Calabash that screend only local films.
The festival will be preceded by a two-day conference to unpack Aspiration 5 of the Agenda 2063 from 29 to 30 September 2023 at the Great Zimbabwe monument in partnership with Great Zimbabwe University an institution with a strong commitment to the preservation of Zimbabwean heritage.
The conference will feature a number of speakers, including filmmakers, academics, policymakers, and youth.
The speakers will discuss the role of film in promoting African culture, the challenges facing the African film industry, and the future of African cinema with a solutions-based approach to the process.
The festival itself will be a showcase of films from Africa and the diaspora, including Afro-descendants from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Representatives from East, West, North and Southern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean have confirmed participation.
ZIFF23 will reach out across Zimbabwe in partnership with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe (NGZ), the institution dedicated to the preservation of Zimbabwean culture and heritage, with Screenings and a Critics workshop developed in collaboration with the NGZ and taking place at the NGZ locations in Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare and Victoria Falls. Main screenings in Harare will be delivered in partnership with Theatre in the Park.
The ZIFFTHUB will be the home of the creative community during the festival with workshops, masterclasses and screenings taking place in Kensington, Harare.
The Opening Night is scheduled for 2 October 2023and will conclude with a Closing night on 6 October 2023 and will be followed by an Awards ceremony on 7 October 2023, confirming the ASPIRATION5 by recognizing the best work created in the African film zeitgeist.
The awards ceremony will showcase African film, fashion, and food in collaboration with the Embassies and other partners.
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