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Ray Bande Mutare Bureau

Tafara Nyatsanza(23) (pictured), a Zimbabwean actor who shuttled between Mutare and Chipinge during childhood as his single mother struggled to raise him, is set to lift the country’s flag high by staring in an American horror film — Spell.

In an interview from his base in Cape Town, Nyatsanza said: “I am really excited by the latest development in my career. It is unfortunate that I am not at liberty share much detail about the horror film I will be part of.  “It is still confidential and they do not allow information to go out that much before the shooting. With the contracts I have signed with the producers I cannot really share much about the project.”

The actor narrated the journey he has travelled until his recent achievements.

“Earlier last year, I joined an agency here in Cape Town,” said Tafara.

“They do TV work. They do adverts and international films. I have been auditioning for adverts, commercials, films and everything. Recently I scored my first film which I am going to feature written by the writer of Salt, and it has a British director

“I have never really acted before a camera before though I have been in multiple theatre productions.”

Tafara made his acting debut at the Artscape, playing the character of Petrucio in Shakespeare’s “Taming of the shrew” in 2014.

“I haven’t been part of any other film,” he said. “This will be my first and I am so excited about that. All I did was theatre, theatre and theatre. I recently did a one man show which I played 12, 13 characters and that is how deeply focused on theatre I have been.”  Owing to his exceptional performance on stage in a play called Scott written and directed by Morepang Molekoa, Tafara won the AKOF award for that particular production.

How and where did Tarafa grow up?

The actor was born on June 14, 1996 at Seventh Avenue Surgical Unit (SASU) in Mutare.

“I went to different primary schools as I grew up,” he said. “I grew up with my mother together with my elder brother, Simba. I went to Mt Selinda Primary (Grade 1 — 3), Emerald Primary in Chipinge (Grade 3 — 4), Hode Primary School in Rusitu, Tiya Primary School in Chimanimani (Grade 4) and ended at St Georges Muchena Primary School in Penhalonga (Grade 6 — 7).”

Interestingly, Tafara is a living example that failure at Ordinary Level is not the end of it all.

“And then in High School I went to Chikanga High School in Mutare and then transferred to Biriiri High School,” he said.

“Unfortunately, I failed my O Levels because I was too playful. After failing Form 4, I went to Cape Town with my mother. I enrolled in Grade 10 which is more like repeating high school and became an A student. At this school in Cape Town they offered drama subjects which we never had back home.

“I fell in love with that maybe because I was very active and playful as I grew up. I did Grade 10, 11 and 12 and that is when I discovered the acting talent in me.”

Moving from one school to another was as a result of his mother struggling to raise him and his brother.

Tafara was born to Pius Nyatsanza and Florence Siwellah, of Chipinge.

His father was the provincial field officer in the DDF water division while his mother was a teacher at Sakubva 2 Rushingo High School.

Tafara’s parents parted ways when had just turned one-and-a-half years old.

For Tafara, this is an inspiration to have a stable family of his own in future.

“Inspiration for me does not come from one space,” he said.

“It comes from different things, from music, from fashion, from music and just the everyday life we live. There is saying that goes, if you are born poor it is not your fault, but if you die poor it is your fault.

“I am inspired by hard-working human beings around me and that also makes me a hard-working person. With what I saw as I grew up with my mother struggling to feed us I would not want to see my children, if I grow up to have them, struggle the way we did.”

Nyatsanza is studying for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre-making at the University of Cape Town.