Chimwemwe Chipidza believes the biggest challenges in Africa’s creative film and TV industry is the lack of available resources and the lack of training. This is just one of the reasons why she is so grateful for the incredible opportunity she has been afforded by being accepted into the MultiChoice Talent Factory (MTF) Academy.

The 25-year-old artist and creative from Harare, Zimbabwe, holds a Professional Certificate in Music from the Music Crossroads Academy in Zimbabwe. She is hoping to further all of her creative abilities at MTF, to become a well-rounded artist with strong technical capabilities.

Chimwemwe hopes this will stand her in good stead to help grow Zimbabwe’s film sector in the future. “I would really like to work on developing mediums that are more relatable and accessible to an African audience. Our history is steeped in an oral culture, and I believe we should explore ways to fuse what we have always known and practised with more modern methods of storytelling.”

She appreciates brilliant writing and storytelling, and as such the critically acclaimed novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, is her favourite book.

Chimwemwe admires writer and actor Gideon Jeph Wabvuta because “he is extremely talented and acknowledges his worth while still remaining grounded”, and lists Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o among her favourite African film stars.