Youths from the ruling Zanu-PF party hold portraits of President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace during the "One Million Man March"
A month ahead of the screening of a new satirical film about the death of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his attempts to avoid judgment in the afterlife, the producer has gone into hiding after receiving threats to pull the plug – or else.
Great Britain’s Most Mischievous Son is due to play at the Paris Independent Film Festival in November. It was made by Zimbabwean Godknows Nare, who describes it as a mix of comedy and action, with strong political undertones.
The film centres on three characters – President Roberto, Disgrace Mugabe and Lucifer – and has a supporting cast of about 45 actors.
Roberto and his wife Disgrace die in a plane crash, en route to Malaysia. Most of the movie is set in heaven’s waiting room, where the Mugabes connive with Lucifer to avoid answering to God about the 1983 Matabeleland massacres.
“We are hitting them hard, everyone involved in the killing of [thousands of Ndebele] people in Matabeleland in western Zimbabwe,” Nare told the Mail & Guardian this week.
Mugabe’s role in the massacres was officially exposed last year in declassified documents released by the government.
They appear to show that the massacres were the result of an effort by Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party to eliminate opposition in the aftermath of the country’s independence from Britain. The film apportions blame for the massacre on Mugabe, based on this revelation.
The film also implicates several other Zimbabwean politicians in the massacre, including vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa, Joice Mujuru, former vice-president and now leader of the opposition Zimbabwe People First party, and her late husband, liberation war icon Solomon Mujuru.
In one of the scenes, Roberto and his wife are duped into believing there is an alternative to gaining access to heaven – one that doesn’t require facing God. Disgrace is led away by Lucifer and has sex with him.
“Lucifer is a very interesting character because he’s actually their fixer. They call him ‘homeboy’. Some of the tricks they use to get into heaven includes what they call ‘dollar diplomacy’ and even sex,” Nare explains.
Nare has been working on documentary projects since the 2008 Zimbabwean elections that saw Mugabe retain power. His work includes the 2009 documentary Hell Hole, which showed the horrifying conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons. He has also documented attacks on Zimbabweans in South Africa, where he has lived for the past 20 years.
Over the past two months Nare has received threatening SMSes and phone calls warning him to stop production and return to Zimbabwe with all the footage.
The movie’s production manager, Eunice Ngoma, confirmed that one of the main actors had pulled out, “fearing the consequences” for mocking Mugabe and his wife.
Nare remains undeterred. “I feel scared … but this is just tip of the iceberg. When it shows overseas it will be serious, because I’m making such a huge mockery of the president and other politicians,” he says.