Matabeleland

Status: In Post-Production

Chris has always believed his family is cursed, carrying a haunting legacy left by his father’s brutal murder. In 1983, Robert Mugabe orchestrated the massacre of over 20,000 people in Matabeleland., including Chris’s father was one of the victims. 

Their bodies were left in unmarked graves scattered across the countryside. Nearly four decades later, Chris, an immigrant in neighbouring Botswana, still feels the weight of this curse as the eldest son, convinced that his father’s spirit remains restless without a proper burial.

Life has not been easy. As he tries to support his sprawling family some of 17 children, he grapples with unpaid wages from his job at a gasoil drilling company, leaving him stretched thin and often absent. His girlfriend, Dumi, loves him but warns that their relationship can only continue if he finally commits to marriage—something he has always resisted. She begins to question his obsession with the curse, wondering if it will overshadow any future they might have together.

Chris finds some solace in a charismatic, cult-like church, where he is told his hardships are the direct result of his father’s unburied spirit. But, everything changes when dictator Robert Mugabe is ousted from power in a historic coup. This political shift brings hope, and Chris finally dares to believe he might break the curse that has plagued him for so long. He connects with Shari, a woman who runs an organization that conducts deals in exhumations and reburials in Matabeleland. She agrees to help him secure a proper burial for his father.

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