LOCAL scriptwriter and filmmaker Annie Paradza has managed to preach about real life experiences such as gender-based violence through her craft.
According to Paradza, she had her first script used in film production in 2019 and since then, she has used that opportunity to expose daily life experiences.
As a scriptwriter, she has done three scripts officially broadcast as films on national television channels.
Paradza told NewsDay Life & Style that her passion for tackling social issues emerged from witnessing hardships faced by people in their day to day lives.
“I have been seeing disturbing cases of gender-based violence in all its forms. I thought of addressing this global scourge through film. Most, if not all of my films tackle social issues,” she said.
The award-winning filmmaker recently graduated from the Zimbabwe Theatre Academy, where she was studying acting and creator programme.
Growing up with a passion of writing, she has quite a handful of scripts ready for production.
However, she noted that it has been challenging to have them all broadcast.
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“I have a bunch of scripts that I have written and I write without ceasing. The problem is lack of funding to produce the films. I hope to partner organisations and companies so that I can be able to produce more films and also to be commissioned by the TV stations in the country and beyond,” she explained.
Paradza has managed to sell her talent on the local entertainment market.
Through her abilities to produce indigenous content, she has bagged lead film production roles for ZBC-TV and 3Ktv.
Paradza is also slowly taking the industry by storm as evidenced by her recent win of the Afzak emerging female writers competition.
She won the first prize on her script which depicts women empowerment and perseverance.
“I entered the competition just after completing an emerging playwright programme with the Zimbabwe Theatre Academy in collaboration with the University of East Anglia. I am very happy because I adopted what I had learned and it worked,” she told NewsDay Life & Style.
“I also got an opportunity to work on the whole script and I am being paid for it. I have since received my prize money and we have started developing the script into a feature film.”
Some of the films which she has written are Boundaries Within, produced in 2019, which tackles the issue of human trafficking; Mar, produced in 2020, which exposes sexual abuse, and last year she collaborated with Leo Jakata Erics on a film titled 14Feb.
Having learned from the best like Tsitsi Dangarembga, Elizabeth Muchemwa and Gideon Wabvuta, the writer expressed that she has been honoured to have her films aired on ZBC-TV.
“I am also one of the writers of the Intab’enkulu, a ZTN series directed by Kuda Bryan Bwititi, and I was also part of the crew. I did wardrobe planning for season 1.”
She highlighted that she is working on a game show to be aired this year on 3Ktv.
“We are at the preproduction stage of a game show called Celebrity Trivia. I am producing the show and Theophilous Marufu will be the presenter,” she said.
