High Hopes

Drought has struck. Father pushes his wife away from the family dinner of termites. In anger, when mother challenges him, he digs a pit with a brutal purpose, but little does he suspect that Mother can retaliate just as powerfully. Based on an old Shona folk tale and rendered as a musical celebrating a diversity of contemporaray Zimbabwean music, Mother's Day is the newest and most exciting motion picture development to come out of Zimbabwe.

A Zimbabwean widow (Jesesi Mungoshi) falls prey to her greedy brother-in-law (Dominic Kanaventi) who takes her children and belongings.

Two teens, Tamari and Itai, are impoverished following the death of their parents when their uncle takes their plow which they need to feed themselves. While their preoccupied neighbors in the village ignore them, Itai leaves for Harare and Tamari stays behind to care for their younger brother and sister. Finally, some of the neighbors notice and come together to support the children.

With ironic emphasis, the film examines an Afro beauty shop on Kantstrasse in Berlin. Customers describe their experiences in post-reunification Berlin and at the same time convey a small product knowledge of hair straighteners and bleaching creams.

After living a high profile life as a model and wife to the then coach of the Zimbabwe national football team, Tendayi Westerhof stunned the nation by becoming the first high profile person to go public about her HIV positive status in 2002. Her enemies increased, some going to the extent of calling her disclosure a publicity gimmick. This beautiful woman has gone on to become a public figure in a very different way, as an elegant and glamourous AIDS activist in the world of modelling and the public media. Pamela Kanjenzana lives a very different life with her HIV infection in one of Zimbabwe's high density suburbs. Nevertheless she also manages to survive by living positivly. Two remarkable examples of how living with the virus has changed.

Wanjiru Kinyanjui was born in Kenya in 1958. Before becoming a filmmaker, she was a writer, poet, and radio journalist. She obtained her master’s degree in English Literature and German in Berlin before enrolling in the German Film and Television School (dffb) there. This film consists of several interviews with people of colour and talks about their view on racism in Germany.

The story of young Kundisai Sande who desperately wants to get married but finds herself in a sexual network with disastrous consequences. Her boyfriend Teri deserts her, only to find himself in the same sexual network. Mahachi, the successful, promiscuous businessman who seduces Kundisai brings infection to the marriage bed. In the midst of their misery, the players in the sexual network come to realize that One Love can conquer all.