Simon Bright (Producer)
Simon began filmmaking with Ingrid Sinclair in the 1980s, establishing the film production company Zimmedia. They worked with filmmakers from Mozambique, Tanzania and Angola making anti-apartheid documentaries, including Corridors of Freedom, that were broadcast on TV in Southern Africa and internationally. In 1988 Simon was invited by the Government of Angola to film, under enemy fire, the last shots in the battle for Cuito Cuanavale and to break the news of the final South African military defeat to TV stations internationally.
Together with Steve Chigorimbo and the late Steven Chifunyise, Simon was instrumental organising the First Frontline Film Festival and the subsequent Southern African Film Festivals. These Pan African film festivals brought the great filmmakers of West and North Africa to Harare for the first time, to inspire and work with the budding film industry then developing in Harare.
In 1995 he co-produced Flame with Joel Phiri. Directed and written by Ingrid Sinclair, it became the first Zimbabwean film to be selected for the Cannes film festival and went on to win prizes and be screened all around the world.
In 1996 Simon Bright and Ingrid Sinclair were engaged to develop the curriculum and lead the first season of the Unesco Film School, based in Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Information.
Simon’s productions explore the diversity of African culture, history and environment, with films like the Pan African drama series, Mama Africa, celebrating the story-telling power of six of Africa’s best female Directors. He sees making film as a way of exploring new dimensions of history, culture and politics as well as an excuse to ask questions that have not been asked.
Moving to Bristol Simon and his partner Ingrid Sinclair founded the Afrika Eye film festival which recently celebrated it’s 20th anniversary. Simon was also invited by the British Council Festivals Connect fund to attend and lecture at the Mashiriki Films festival in Rwanda, and the partnership between Afrika Eye and Mashiriki festivals is continuing to develop.
Currently, Simon is working with fellow Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Tanzanians to curate and digitise a selection of films from the 1980s to the 2000s. These liberation films chart the foundational changes in the liberation of Southern Africa when filmmakers from the Frontline States worked across national borders and cultures, despite linguistic barriers, to produce a rich movement of co-production.
Ingrid Sinclair (Director)
Ingrid trained at Bristol Filmmakers Co-op in the UK and served on the National Executive Committee of the Independent Filmmakers Association. She was production manager and later documentary director at the ground-breaking Trade Films, based in Gateshead, UK, producing work for Channel 4 TV. She moved to Zimbabwe where she set up Zimmedia with Simon Bright, a Zimbabwean independent film maker.
Ingrid’s films often deal with the situation of women in a highly patriarchal society and have won prizes internationally for her bold story telling (See below). She wrote and directed Flame, a full length feature about two young village girls who joined the Zimbabwean guerrilla army in the struggle for independence. The Zimbabwean authorities clamped down on the film and tried to ban it, but when it was selected for the Cannes Film Festival and won prizes around the world, Flame found favour and was widely distributed throughout Zimbabwe and the region as well as internationally. It was screened for the public in Independence Square at the FESPACO film festival in Burkina Faso.
Besides her celebrations of Zimbabwean sculpture and dance, Ingrid specialises in Southern African stories that have not been told: the buried history of twelfth century Great Zimbabwe trade connections with China via Swahili coastal trading states; Biopiracy: Who Owns Life? which uncovers the genetic theft of first nation plant medicinal knowledge and the successful resistance to such multinational pillaging.
The Mandela Centre of Memory in Johannesburg commissioned Ingrid to curate a major exhibition of photographs and video, supported by Simon Bright. The exhibition highlighted the role of the Frontline States in their vital and sacrificial support towards the ending of apartheid.
Ingrid likes to deal with the complexity of a story at the same time as rendering it both accessible and exciting. Her belief that all people have a common set of values means that she picks out the universal angle of any situation as well as highlighting its particular form. As a director she teases out not only the beauty of everyday situations, but also their inherent conflict, injustice and drama.
Moving to Bristol, UK, Ingrid and Simon founded the Afrika Eye film festival which recently celebrated it’s 20th anniversary. Ingrid used her experience garnered from her many invitations to film festivals from FESPACO in Burkina Faso, to Durban in S Africa and Rotterdam in Holland, to curate the festivals, inspiring British audiences to engage with many hidden gems of African cinema.
Zimmedia
Zimmedia specialises in independent documentary and fiction films on topics from politics and history to dance and music, working with crews from across the region. Our films set out to throw a clearer light on the complexities of southern Africa and balance the simplistic western media portrayal of African peoples as disaster prone victims. Zimmedia also designed and ran training courses for UNESCO, in particular training future trainers in the region so as to strengthen and enlarge the film industry.
Zimmedia and crew, 1986 (L to R: Martin Mahando (Tanzania); Simon Bright & Ingrid Sinclair (Zimbabwe); João Costa, Jacinto Bie Bie & in front, Gabriel Mondlane (Mozambique)