The Zimbabwean produced film, Mirage, directed by the award-winning model and film professional, Malaika Mushandu, wins the best first feature film award at The Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival (TINFF), Canada.

“Mirage was the product of collaborations for the team the award is evidence that we have selected a winning team.” said Malaika Mushandu

TINFF’s focus is to excel in creative, independent film direction through innovation, multicultural, and uniqueness that captures the series of movements and experiences in a single film.

Malaika spoke of the importance of having Mirage at the festival as an opportunity to more open doors for a global pool of partnerships in future productions.

“Being at the TINFF has managed to expose us to a wide African Audience. The goal is to take the same concept of collaborations and do it with others on the continent […] West Africa (Nigeria) is a particular market we would like to enter because of the attractive numbers in their population . A good story resonates anywhere collaborations done well help penetrate new markets” she said

Mirage was the opening film for TINFF screening on the 21st of September, at York Woods Library Theatre, Toronto, Canada. The Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival (TINFF) is a competition with live festival screening and an annual awards event in the beautiful city of Toronto. Each year between August and October, they have the festival award and Gala nights. After Official Selected Films have been announced and notified, they then proceed to the next stage of the selection process and announce the TINFF’s Festival’s “NOMINEES” who will now compete for an award to be presented at the live festival event in Toronto, Canada.

‘Mirage’ is a movie set in 2017 during the historical coup in Zimbabwe. The movie tells the story of three prison inmates who escape the prison for their own personal reasons. Tambu (played by Prudence Katomeni-Mbofana) hopes to escape in order to get to her daughter Diamond who is now under the shadow of abuse and insanity. Zoe (Charmaine Mujeri) hopes to get back to a person she once lost. Memo (Chipo Bizure) a woman who believes she was wrongfully convicted. The script was written by award-winning writer Virginia Jekanyika while production was handled by Joe Njagu, MMX Productions and Malaika Productions.