Rumbi Katedza is a Zimbabwean filmmaker and writer, who has lived in the USA, Japan, Italy, Canada, the UK and Zimbabwe. She produces corporate and independent narrative and documentary content through her production company, Mai Jai Films, a company focused on pioneering a new generation of Zimbabwean films and filmmakers through creative co-productions.

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Katedza is part of a group of thirteen African filmmakers who will work on new films under the ‘Generation Africa project. The initiative is looking to create stories “which are unpredictable, touching, moving, revolutionary, and challenging. Full Article

These short films attest to a wide range of voices and agendas (including questions of identity and beauty presented in Ng’endo Mukii’s work; and that of the pain of displacement and belonging in Rumbi Katedza’s film, that these artists/filmmakers are bringing to the screen and the cultural and industry collaborations that are behind some of them eg. Pascale Obolo’s filmography combines stories from the diaspora in the Caribbean and Europe and Sylvie Bayonne’s film in this programme combines inspiration from Oriental and African cultures.  Full Article

Rumbi Katedza, director of an Of Africa Cinema Homeland feature, the award winning short film Asylum, has an extensive resume. Rumbi has lived in the USA, Japan, Italy, Canada, the UK and Zimbabwe. She worked as a radio presenter/producer for Radio 3 a Zimbabwean station. Full Article

Rumbi Katedza spent her formative years in Japan and United States and it was in Tokyo that she discovered her lover for film. Full Article

No matter, I’m still curious about this drama by Zimbabwean writer/director Rumbi Katedza, intriguingly-titled Playing Warriors – what looks like a playful social dramedy about four young women and the challenges they face in balancing the expectations of tradition and social norms that come with being modern, independent women in present day Zimbabwe. Full Article

Rumbi Katedza, actively involved in Zimbabwean cinema culture, talks about her evolution into the moving image, the role that she would like to play in forging a modern Zimbabwean cultural identity, and her new film Playing Warriors. Full Article

It’s not hard to see why Rumbi Katedza’s first feature has been described as a Zimbabwean ‘Sex and the City’. Four high-flying twenty-something women spend a good chunk of the movie hanging out in trendy Harare bars talking sex, dating, and marriage. Full Article

The film focuses on the lives of four friends – modern young women in the city – and how they struggle to find a balance between the traditional expectations of their parents and society and their own dreams. Set against the backdrop of Nyarai’s (Kudzai Sevenzo’s) romantic escapades with her toyboy Che and her more mature and financially stable older boyfriend, Leslie, the film takes the audience on a journey of discovery of what it means to be a modern woman. Full Article

The film confronts the themes of political persecution and violence in Zimbabwe. It focuses on the experiences of four individuals living in the high density, peri-urban settlements around Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, during the violence brought on by the 2008 elections. Full Article

Directed by Zimbabwean Rumbi Katedza, produced by Johannesburg-based Curious Pictures, and supported by the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), the film focuses on the work of the Tree of Life, a local NGO that conducts community healing workshops in Zimbabwe. Full Article

Human interest stories. I like them the most because they’re the ones that transcend culture and borders. There’s something that is true to your heart and your emotion about your journey as an individual. People can relate to it anywhere. Particularly in Zimbabwe, there’s a lot that we don’t say, or there’s a lot that’s not documented. We need to have visual images of Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans. Full Article

Set against the backdrop of Nyarai’s own romantic escapades with her basketball playing toyboy Che and her more mature and financially stable older boyfriend, Leslie, Nyarai must decide in which direction she wants to take her life without simultaneously upsetting too many people. Full Article

Additional items of particular interest are three poems by Charles Mungoshi, one of Zimbabwe’s most celebrated writers, a poem by Chris Magadza (part of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning team on climate change), a piece on former South African president Thabo Mbeki, and a short story by writer-filmmaker Rumbi Katedza, which starts with the death in flagrante of an unnamed octogenarian dictator in bed with his young mistress.  Full Article

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The new short story anthology by Weaver Press, Women Writing Zimbabwe, delivers the high quality readers have come to associate with the publisher’s products. It contains fifteen stories by fifteen strong female voices of Zimbabwean literature. Full Article

Rumbi explores identity as a Zimbabwean living inside and outside Zimbabwe.  Watch