Cinema
Consequences
Olley Maruma · 1988
Synopsis
Rita is sixteen; a brilliant and gifted pupil, she already sees herself at university. She goes out with Richard, a classmate, and becomes pregnant. Her schoolwork suffers, she breaks up with the boy, the school expels them both, and she is thrown out of her home, in shame. The film follows what this pregnancy undoes in the life of an adolescent: her studies, her friendships and the future she had promised herself.
Context
Shot in English and in colour, the film was produced by Development through Self-Reliance with John Riber, who was then settling in Zimbabwe to make development films; Yvette Ogiste plays Rita and Joel Phiri plays Richard. Hayes Mabweazara ranks it in 2003 among the films born after independence from the initiative of donors, educational, which aimed at the message rather than profit. In 2000, Riber gave the story a sequel, centred this time on a boy from Harare who becomes a father, and Yvette Ogiste-Muchenje took up the role of Rita again.
Who it is for
In English, under an hour. A film with a message, made to teach as much as to tell a story, which lends itself to discussion after the screening.
Prizes and reception
Seven international prizes according to the programme of a British tour of films from Southern Africa; cited in 2003 by Hayes Mabweazara among educational films.
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