Mr Simon B Bright

My research is primarily on the untold history of the creative collaboration between filmmakers in Southern Africa from 1975. My work traces the Pan African Cinema origins of many of the ideas that guided the development of filmmaking in Southern Africa. I focus on the meetings and manifestoes beginning in Maputo in 1977 and reflect on the role of film festivals in stimulating co-production and collaboration in film production and distribution referencing the First Frontline Film Festival and the Southern African Film Festivals. As a practitioner from this period who was involved in founded these festivals as well as making the films, I am especially interested in the dynamics that encouraged the growth of Southern African Transnational Cinema including the global distribution and the growth of international financing. 

My current research is a collaboration with Professor Jorge Ferrao, in Mozambique; Professor Martin Mhando in Tanzania curating a collection of materials from the Southern African Film movement including posters, manifestoes and films shot on 35 mm, 16 mm and video with a view to digitising them for conservation and public access. However we plan to extend this research to include Namibia, South Africa and Angola.

I am a member of FEPACI, the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers and co-founded with Ingrid Sinclair, the Afrika Eye film festival which takes place in Bristol each year. As a Zimbabwean filmmaker I produced Flame, the first Zimbabwean film to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival and the Mama Africa series co-funded by PBS in the USA and Mnet in South South Africa. 

My other research interests include pre-colonial African trading histories and small scale rural re-afforestation in Zimbabwe.