Zimbabwean award-winning actress and emerging creative techpreneur Tendaiishe Chitima has returned home following an intensive research residency in the United Kingdom, where she trained with two of the world’s leading motion-capture institutions, Creature Bionics and the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (LAMDA). Her trip, which ran from 20 to 30 October 2025, was made possible through the British Council Zimbabwe Catalyst Grant, along with support from Telco Zimbabwe and UK-based health-tech company Check Up Health, founded by Zimbabwean-born health-tech entrepreneur Fungai Ndemera, whose mission is to address health inequalities through AI-driven digital solutions.

The residency marks the first step in Chitima’s bold mission to establish Zimbabwe’s first performance-capture studio through her company, Tunga Mwenje, in collaboration with Alula Animation in Harare. The initiative aims to introduce motion capture to Zimbabwean filmmakers, dancers, animators, athletes and young creatives, opening doors to opportunities in film, gaming, animation and other emerging creative technologies.

Chitima said the experience transformed her understanding of what is possible for Zimbabwean storytelling and for the future of African creativity. “This experience has completely shifted my understanding of what’s possible for Zimbabwean storytelling. Motion capture is not just technology, it’s a doorway into a new era of African imagination, performance, and empowerment,” she said. “Bringing this knowledge back home is deeply meaningful to me because I have always wanted to perform in sci-fi, video games and animation. Our local talent deserves access to future-facing tools, and the motion capture studio we are building will make that possible. It will make our filmmaking dreams come true here at home.”

Chitima’s upcoming studio will offer interactive workshops, performance-capture labs and skills-development programmes aimed at growing Zimbabwe’s presence in global creative technology and building employment pathways for young people. She also intends to foster stronger links between Zimbabwean and international creatives, investors and production companies through future exchange programmes and collaborative projects. She will share more of her research at Alula Animation’s XPO on 28 November 2025 at the New Ambassador Hotel in Harare.

The British Council, which enabled the residency, continues its work in cultural relations, arts, education and English language initiatives across more than 100 countries, reaching nearly 600 million people in 2024–25.