Africa First Selected Videos

The Tunnel

The Tunnel is a 25min, one of 5 African shorts selected for the Focus Features Africa First Short Film Program. 

The story, set in 1980s Zimbabwe during the 5th Brigade massacres, follows young Elizabeth as she uses her skills as a storyteller to save her village and solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance. It not only aims to raise awareness about the human rights abuses inflicted by Robert Mugabe at the time but, through the medium of cinema, provide a way to confront the suffering of the past so relevant to many African people.

The Tunnel is written and directed by Jenna Bass.



Pumzi

Pumzi is a 20 min Sc-Fi film about futuristic Africa, 35 years after World War III “The Water War”. Nature is extinct. The outside is dead. Asha lives and works as a museum curator in one of the indoor communities set up by the Maitu Council. When she receives a box in the mail containing soil, she plants an old seed in it and the seed starts to germinate instantly. Asha appeals to the Council to grant her permission to investigate the possibility of life on the outside but the Council denies her exit visa. Asha breaks out of the inside community to go into the dead and derelict outside to plant the growing seedling and possibly find life on the outside.