‘The Gentleman’ goes places

Businessman Philip Chiyangwa

Acclaimed Zimbabwean film “The Gentleman” will premiere at Zanzibar International Film Festival at Old Fort, on Sunday. The festival also known as festival of the Dhow Countries is an annual film event held in Zanzibar, Tanzania, and has been described as the largest cultural event in East Africa.

There will be film screenings in Stone Town in Zanzibar City, as well as rural Zanzibari villages in and around Tanzania. “We have been humbled again by the honours this movie has been bringing to us. I think this proves beyond any measurable doubt that we are on the right track and we have the capacity to produce quality Zimbabwean movies,” Rufaro Kaseke, the producer, said.

Kaseke, who is currently in England promoting the movie, said films play a pivotal role in telling the Zimbabwean story and keeping the country on the global map. “We are working on a premiere of a movie which was shot and produced here in England called ‘The In-Laws’. The premiere is set for July 28 in London after which we will bring the movie to the Zimbabwean market,” he said.

The Zanzibar festival is one of the top three festivals in Africa after FESPACO and Durban international which only shows and awards movies in African languages with subtitles. Previous winners of the Golden Dhow award include “Maangamizi: The Ancient One”, “Khakestar-o-khak”, “Stephanie Sycholt Themba” and South Africa’s “Jerusalem”. Starring Munyaradzi Chidzonga aka the Diamond Boy from the Big Brother Africa reality show, “The Gentleman” is an action movie which also stars South African award-winning actor Presley Chweneyagae.

Business tycoon Philip Chiyangwa makes his debut on the big screen with a cameo role in which he plays “Mr Rogers”, a filthy rich businessman with a criminal mind. The film was Zimbabwe’s representative at the recent African Film Expo in Johannesburg where it was dubbed “Africa’s next block buster” by Screen Africa magazine.

“The Gentleman” is a story of two identical twin brothers (both played by Chidzonga) whose identical worlds have gone drastically wrong. With one staying in South Africa and the other in Zimbabwe fate throws at them financial situations that force them to drop the principles and values of integrity and pick up survival tactics.

One twin fights to save the life of his wife and baby, but sticking to his Christian morals; and the other battles to save his own life. Reuniting after eight years, they get entangled into the unfamiliar worlds of Zimbabwe’s manipulative corporate darkness and South Africa’s Mafioso street corruption. Herald