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Filmmaker takes Dhewa documentary to America

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LOCAL journalist and filmmaker, Abel Dzobo at the weekend screened his film The Show Goes On in Austin, Texas in the United States.

LOCAL journalist and filmmaker, Abel Dzobo at the weekend screened his film The Show Goes On in Austin, Texas in the United States.

BY TAFADZWA KACHIKO

Abel Dzobo
Abel Dzobo

The inspirational cancer awareness documentary chronicles the late sungura music icon, Tongai Moyo’s confrontation with the disease and his lifelong relationship with fans.

The late Naye hitmaker succumbed to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2011 having produced 14 albums in a career spanning over two decades.

The screening of the documentary was part of the 2017 Mandela Washington Fellowship business and entrepreneurship sector.

Dzobo, a journalist who found solace in filmmaking, told NewsDay that the screening of the documentary for the first time outside the country was awesome, but bemoaned the lack of support back home, saying even the State broadcaster ZBC had not screened it.

“I was overwhelmed with the turnout at the screening event, given that it was something planned two days before screening,” he said. “The audience was touched by the story and the fatality of late diagnosis of cancer.

“People sat to watch a film by an unknown person from Zimbabwe.

“It gets you thinking, what if we had more support locally?”

Dzobo said the audience was shocked at the lack of support, with his other fellows on the Mandela Washington Fellowship surprised that the documentary had not been shown on Zimbabwe’s national television station.

He said he was driven to show the film to other nationalities to share with the world the realities in Zimbabwe.

“Film is a universal language, and it is always meant to be shared,” Dzobo said.

“It is a portal that teleports us into another world and also gives others a peek into our lived realities.

“We should be telling our stories for international audiences that is why I took the film to Austin, Texas.”

Like any other artist, Dzobo bemoaned the high level of piracy in the country that resulted in him failing to pocket anything meaningful from the documentary, which then hampered its screening in other parts of the country.

“The documentary was pirated extensively,” he lamented.

“I did not make any money from it, and I incurred heavy losses because it was largely self-funded.

“It has never really been taken to people who need it, especially those in the rural areas, who accuse each other of witchcraft, yet it might be cancer.

“So, I am gathering personal resources again, so that I can do another documentary on cancer.”

The film screening was organised by renowned documentary filmmaker and director Matthew Koshmrl, who is also a lecturer at Austin School of Film and also the Moody School of Communication, Department of Radio Television Film.