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Bako

When a mission to mine a tonne of gold goes awry and a cave-in occurs, four illegal miners must find their way out of a network of caves and mine shafts before a supernatural force takes their lives.

  • Tafadzwa Ranganai
    Director
    Nevanji
  • Tafadzwa Ranganai
    Writer
    Nevanji
  • Kuda Bryan Bwititi
    Producer
    Overspill, 3 Days in March
  • Admire Kanhenga
    Producer
    3 Days in March, Intab'enkulu
  • Tafadzwa Ranganai
    Producer
    Nevanji, The Mole
  • Paul Saymore Zibgowa
    Key Cast
    "Kuda"
    4KUS
  • Kudzai Kizito Madangwa
    Key Cast
    "Simon"
    Murindagomo
  • Zebron Thembo
    Key Cast
    "Tanaka"
    Redemption
  • Mathias Kureva
    Key Cast
    "Peter"
    The Lamb
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 16 minutes 7 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 26, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    16,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Zimbabwe
  • Country of Filming:
    Zimbabwe
  • Language:
    Shona
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Tafadzwa Ranganai

Tafadzwa Ranganai is a Zimbabwean writer, director and editor in the film industries of both Zimbabwe and Botswana. He has a Bachelor of Media Studies from the University of Botswana and he is a co-founder of film production company Creative Hub Films with his former college classmates. Creative Hub Films works on a number of projects in Botswana and Zimbabwe including short & feature films, documentaries and music videos. In Botswana, Tafadzwa has worked as a director and editor on various TV commercials and music videos. However, his passion has always been in narrative films and has directed 2 short films and co-produced 5, including Ngozi as part of the Gaborone 48hr film project in 2013, which won several awards at the award ceremony.

After returning to his home country Zimbabwe, Tafadzwa directed the first seasons of two reality tv shows; the massively popular Battle of the Chefs Harare, and it’s spin off Homemade with DeAnkarra Chef. 2019 saw Tafadzwa write and direct his first feature film on a very limited budget. The film, Nevanji would only be completed in 2021 but has been in various film festivals around the world including First-Time Filmmaker Sessions at Pinewood Studios (UK) in 2021, Sotambe Arts and Film Festival (Zambia) in 2021, and won Best Actor at the Zimbabwe International Film Festival 2022. The film is currently streaming on various online platforms including Amazon Prime Video and Afroland TV. He is currently in post-production of his next feature film, Cavern, a horror film.

Tafadzwa is a fan of horror, sci-fi, thriller and action genres but always finds a way to infuse comedy into his writing. He dabbles in graphic design, doing all the artwork for his own projects and his growing interest in distribution has made him adept at marketing film productions. He is one of those rare talents in filmmaking that is truly an all-rounder, having worked in every department of a film (and excelled) throughout his career. Tafadzwa refers to himself as a multi hyphenate creative who learns a new skill every so often.

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Director Statement

Bako tells the story of a group of illegal gold miners, led by the young Kuda, who venture into a long abandoned mine in search of the biggest haul of gold rumoured to exist. Our film is basically a microcosm of modern Zimbabwean society. Kuda is a university graduate who is forced to join his older brother Tanaka in illegal mining simply because of unemployment. Kuda’s best friend Simon is eager to join in on this quest because on top of being young and unemployed, he craves riches and fame.

I, along with a vast majority of Zimbabweans, am fascinated by illegal gold miners. A lot of us only hear of them through stories and what we see in the media. I wanted to take an opportunity to explore characters who live lives very different from the average person, yet, share similar hopes and dreams, experience the same human emotions we do…and add a cave monster in the mix, just for fun. Things that lurk in the dark are also fascinating and what darker place exists than the bowels of a cave system?

I am a fan of the horror genre and have decided to make it my mission to open up Zimbabwean audiences to the many delights the genre can offer. More than that, the way this film was shot is very unique to our film industry. It was a combination of on-location shooting mixed with sound stage shooting (I use the term sound stage here loosely). We invested a lot in set construction, eventually shooting 50% of all the underground scenes on this set. While constructing a cave system set may not seem all that impressive to some, in Zimbabwe, where our films are of the independently funded, low budget variety, this is a really big deal. One of the reasons I decided on filming this way was to attempt to jump start a more “professional” way of making films in Zimbabwe.

Most of all, I really just wanted to make a film that will entertain people and scare them just a little bit.