The NAMA nominated short film, A Few Dollars More, has been officially selected for the 2024 African Indigenous Language Film Festival scheduled for September.
Written and directed by Jabu Mudzvova, the film was created under the 2023 ALZ Film Fellowship, an initiative by Magamba Network and Accountability Lab Zimbabwe for young filmmakers in Zimbabwe interested in social justice.
[After being urged to get into directing by my friend (Cyril) and a fellow filmmaker] I applied for the ALZ film fellowship and got selected as one of ten young Zimbabwean filmmakers to make a film on social justice issues affecting my community. After two ideas that didn't really fit the theme, I settled on A Few Dollars More which I adapted from a Twitter (X) thread which I felt resonated and honestly was something I cared about. - Jabu Mudzvova
The film was adapted from an X (Twitter) thread chronicling the struggles of trying to make it in Zimbabwe.
I always knew when I was writing the film that I was never going to settle on one topic, I'm very much an artist based off feeling rather than intellect, so I write what I feel, my attraction to the thread was the manner of language used to describe daily issues young people face... - Jabu Mudzvova
As I said picking one topic felt limited, but also trying to talk about everything also felt impossible. We had to cut out so many scenes, it's impossible to summarise Zim in one short. I genuinely do feel though that cinema is a way for us to look in the mirror, hopefully connect with the character and introspect on the absurdity of our surroundings. - Jabu Mudzvova
The film premiered at the Bokola Film Festival in December 2023, and was subsequently made available on the ALZ Film Fellowship’s Youtube channel.
It was a lot of fun planning out the visual language for the film and playing around with the dialogue, deciding to use a separate narrator from the protagonist as a device. I was honestly just having a lot of fun with it, film production is difficult due to costs, scheduling and commitment from people so I thought to myself if I'm going to do this with the little I've been given I'll make the most of it. - Jabu Mudzvova
Mudzvova has had a short journey in filmmaking with his only previous work being a script he wrote for Switch, a film directed by a friend which made the selection of My Rode Reel Festival. The filmmaker says he owes the creation of his debut film to his circle of friends, family and those in the industry who took a chance on him.
In February 2024, A Few Dollars More was nominated at the 22nd edition of the National Art Merit Awards (NAMA) under Outstanding Screen Production (Short Film).
From being on set hungover, surviving off energade to being nominated for the NAMAs was truly incredible. I know my name is on there but this is something I truly did with my friends. Filmmaking is a collaborative art, so I will never stop thanking them and my family for allowing me to a little bit selfish and see this through. - Jabu Mudzvova
Held in Lagos, Nigeria the African Indigenous Language Film Festival (AILFF) is aimed at projecting and furthering the progress of African Indigenous language filmmaking through film screening, training workshops and conferences to proffer lasting solutions to distribution and monetisation challenges of indigenous language film genre.
You can watch A Few Dollars More below:
Enjoyed reading this news report? Support Greedysouth by buying the team a cup of coffee. Your support assists in the production of such quality reports. Thank you.