EXCLUSIVE: Rushlake Media Acquires Angela Zivo Gapa's Rusambo Ahead of SVAFF World Premiere
The Zimbabwean filmmaker's feature directorial debut, a whodunnit set inside a traditional marriage negotiation, lands global representation four days before its Silicon Valley bow.
Rushlake Media has acquired Rusambo, the feature directorial debut of Zimbabwean filmmaker Angela Zivo Gapa, for international distribution and global representation, Black Film Wire can exclusively reveal. The deal closes just days before the film's world premiere at the Silicon Valley African Film Festival (SVAFF) this Sunday, October 11, in San Jose, California.
For an independently produced Zimbabwean feature, securing a sales and distribution partner before a single public screening is a significant move. Most African independents enter the festival circuit hoping to find representation there. Rusambo arrives with it already in hand.
A Familiar Ritual Takes an Unexpected Turn
Rusambo is built around roora, the Shona bridewealth tradition widely known across Southern Africa as lobola. The film follows a family gathering for traditional marriage negotiations that goes wrong, transforming a ritual most Zimbabwean viewers know intimately into a mystery where loyalties are tested, secrets surface, and everyone in the room has something to hide.
Gapa uses the mechanics of the whodunnit to get at bigger questions: marriage, family, loyalty, suspicion, and, crucially, female agency inside a custom that has long been debated for what it says about women's place in the family. The result, according to the filmmakers, is a portrait of contemporary Zimbabwean life that sits outside the conventional ways Africa tends to be shown on screen.
A Distributor With Real Infrastructure in African Markets
Rushlake Media operates out of Cologne, Germany, and Nairobi, Kenya, and positions itself as a multi-platform distribution and sales network with a strong footprint in African and international markets. The company is led by founder and CEO Philipp Hoffmann, and has run TidPix, its FAST channel for African content curated by its Nairobi team, since launching it on Africa Day in 2020.
The company has been steadily building its African slate. Rushlake recently partnered with Nigerian distributor FilmOne Entertainment and production company InkBlot to bring Nigerian films to global audiences, with a strong emphasis on AVoD and FAST markets, and hosted the inaugural Africa XChange Summit in Cologne in October 2025. It also secured a deal with Kenya's D&R Studios to distribute that company's content library across key territories in North America and Europe.
Rusambo now joins that pipeline as Rushlake represents the film internationally.
Lena Bacchet, Head of Acquisitions at Rushlake Media, said the film won the team over from the start.
"Rusambo immediately captivated us with its tense and deeply human story," said Bacchet. "Angela Zivo Gapa has created a powerful film that blends traditional customs with a modern thriller dynamic, and we are thrilled to bring this extraordinary Zimbabwean story to a global audience."
"Rooted Unapologetically in Our Culture"
For Gapa, the timing of the deal sets the tone for everything that follows.
"Having RUSAMBO picked up for international distribution before its world premiere is an extraordinary way to begin the film's festival journey," said Gapa. "This film began as a deeply Zimbabwean story, made independently with a Zimbabwean cast and crew. I wanted to tell a story rooted unapologetically in our culture while creating something audiences anywhere could recognize themselves in. To now have a partner positioned to take that story to audiences internationally is incredibly exciting."
Gapa is a Zimbabwe-born filmmaker and associate professor of international relations at California State University, Chico, whose work examines African identity, culture, power, and the complexities of contemporary African life. Her scholarship includes The Politics of New African Resource Discoveries in the Post-Curse Era (2024), which she edited. She wrote and directed Rusambo, which was produced by Eddie Ndhlovu.
An All-Zimbabwean Ensemble
The film stars Deborah Kabongo, David Kanduna, Talent Nyamayedenga, Collin Ncube, Benhilda Kandawasvika, Stewart Sakarombe, Mapfumo Katsaya, Everjoy Nyabasa, Tafadzwa Beni, Pedzisayi Pedzisayi, Charity Dlodlo, and Hardlife Makuku.
What This Deal Signals
We have watched African independents spend years on the festival circuit waiting for a distributor to take a chance. Rusambo flips that order. A Zimbabwean film, made independently, with a Zimbabwean cast and crew, telling a story anchored in a specifically Shona custom, has a sales partner before its first audience has seen it.
That matters beyond one film. Zimbabwe's screen industry rarely gets the international distribution attention that Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya command, and a genre-forward premise like a roora whodunnit is exactly the kind of culturally specific, commercially legible storytelling buyers say they want and too rarely back. We will be watching how Rushlake positions Rusambo across platforms and territories, and we expect Sunday's premiere to be one of the conversations of the festival.
Rusambo has its world premiere at the Silicon Valley African Film Festival on Sunday, October 11, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. at the Historic Hoover Theatre in San Jose, California, followed by a filmmaker Q&A. Follow the film on Instagram at @afilmbyangelazivo and visit the official website at https://sites.google.com/view/rusambo.
Editor's note: Black Film Wire's Editor-in-Chief also serves as Director of Outreach for the Silicon Valley African Film Festival.
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Sahndra Fon Dufe is the founder and editor-in-chief of Black Film Wire, covering Black and African cinema, industry trends, and global storytelling across the diaspora.
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