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Tafadzwa Zimoyo Senior Arts Reporter

“Africa needs its economy, politics, culture and language among other things,” writes Ngugi Wa Thiongo’.

Today Zimbabwe joins the rest of the continent in celebrating Africa Day, and there are a lot of events lined up.

It’s definitely a holiday and this time around since the Covid-19 restrictions have been eased, merry-makers will be spoilt for choice.

Barely two years since the events have been banned in order to curb the spread of the pandemic virus, now they are back in full force. The Herald Arts team conducted a survey on some of the events and activities taking place today with some spreading until the weekend. Here is a snippets of the Africa Day celebrations:

AfroCinema Pop-Up channel launched

With Africa Day being today, M-Net is proud to announce M-Net Movies AfroCinema Pop-Up, an exciting channel that will celebrate and showcase the best festival movies from across the continent.

The channel started running from last week Friday 20 May and is expected to end on this Sunday.

It will be available on DStv Channel 198.

Some of the shows to be featured include award-winning movies that have been sourced from Africa’s top film festivals and give discerning cinema lovers a curated movie experience of films that range from the critically acclaimed to hidden gems, in what’s sure to be a delightful cinematic feast.

Some of the top movies on the channel that film lovers can look forward to are “Mind Games from Zimbabwe” which is about a man tortured by guilt who meets a psychopathic killer who forces him to revisit and conquer his personal demons in order to save his only daughter and survive the day.

 Then “Katutura”  from Namibia. This gem follows a group of people living in a township as they navigate a life of crime, drugs, struggle and — despite it all — love and hope.

Another one from Uganda is “In the Name of Love” which is about an unemployed University graduate who gives in to the pressure to marry his lover, he finds himself in limbo to provide for his woman. Can the couple survive the pressure?

 “I Am Not a Witch” (Zambia) — This BAFTA Award-winning film is about a little girl who is accused of being a witch and sentenced to a camp of elderly witches.

From Malawi there is the “Fatsani: A Tale of Survival”. Malawi’s official entry to the 2022 Oscars, this drama is about a young girl forced to sell bananas in the street for survival after her school is shut down.

Quite the line-up, is it!

 Mazarura releases video for Africa Day song

Afro-fusion musician Ranson Madzamba popularly known as Mazarura has released a video of the song “Africa” to celebrate the Motherland

“Africa” is a Pan-African song that encourages Africans to be united and be hard workers for the good of their economies. 

The song was produced by Mazarura Music working with Maselo.

Mazarura said Africa has the potential to be a developed continent since it has all the resources required for development.

He said the song is full of encouragement and perseverance as it says the African continent has everything it needs to prosper. 

“We have gold, diamonds, good rich soils for agriculture, great natural resources good for tourists.” 

Mazarura said the African continent was arguably the richest continent and as Africans we needed to believe in ourselves and harness our resources.

 He said the youth should be guided by the principles of African revolutions and revolutionaries like Samora Machel, Herbert Chitepo, Thomas Sankara, Julius Nyerere and Nelson Mandela among others.

The video was shot at various locations including SADC offices and it starts with a Jerusarema dance to which is purely Zimbabwean if not African.

 Model Gezi on Africa Day campaign

Model and socialite Tariro Gezi has encouraged other young girls to be proud of themselves.

She made the remarks yesterday during her campaign, “My African Pride” where she conducted a photo-shoot dressed in African attire with make-up themed Africa.

Gezi who is also a video vixenfeatured in several musical videos, said today is all about celebrating African cultures and heritage.

“I decided to do a photo shoot promoting the African style. We are used to the normal makeup style but today let’s have African pride. I used a gold plate which symbolised wealth in Africa and the sunset on my eyes is a symbol of hope while the tree is nature,” she said.