This 25-minute film is being shown as part of The New African Cinema spotlight, and is directed by 23 year old South African Jenna Bass, a graduate of AFDA Film School in Cape Town.
“The Tunnel” was shot in Cape Town in May 2009 with a team of young filmmakers, including David Horler (Associate Producer), Jacques Koudstaal (DOP), Jacques de Villiers (Editor) and Maike Hitzeroth (Production Designer).The team pulled together to create a patch of Zimbabwe on South African soil, often working for free to realize the film’s vision and message.
Set in 1980s Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, The Tunnel follows young Elizabeth, nicknamed ‘Rabbit’ because of her love of making up tall tales. When she arrives at a guerrilla camp desperate for help, Elizabeth must tell her greatest story of all, a story about her village, strangers, ghosts, the day her father dug a tunnel to the city and her journey to find him.
As the story unfolds, Elizabeth embarks on a quest for truth, weaving together fact and illusion. But reality is not far behind and, to save her village, Elizabeth will have to confront it.
This coming of age, magical realist fable is based on true events that took place during the Matabeleland Massacres just after Zimbabwe’s independence. It was in these early days of freedom that terrible deeds were conducted in secret, away from optimistic global eyes, overseen by the country’s new president, Robert Mugabe. Fuelled by age old disputes, Mugabe dispatched the 5th Brigade into opposition territory, where a campaign of terror was waged against rural Ndebele civilians. Mugabe christened the campaigns ‘Gukurahundi’, translated as ‘the rain that washes away the chaff’. To this day it has yet to be reconciled.
still image from the short film
still image from the short film
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