Zimbabwe International Film Festival (Ziff) which normally screens big international films as the opening film for the festival will this year be screening, An African Election, a Ghanaian film sponsored by Trust Africa, Hivos and the Royal Norwegian Embassy, HVP has learned.

Speaking on the reason for choosing an African film as the opening film for this year’s festival scheduled to run from September 30 to October 7, Ziff acting director, Charity Maruta said, “we have now moved from screening big international films to a strong African cinema focus in a bid to contribute towards the widest circulation of African films and enhance the utilization of consumption of African films by Zimbabweans.”

Also speaking on Nollywood movies, Maruta added, “Nollywood films, popularly known as Nigerian films, were also under African cinema but would not qualify for the Ziff because they lacked high- quality standards, thus were a very bad example of African cinema.”