The documentary “Robert Mugabe… What Happened?”, directed by Simon Bright and produced by Michael Auret, had its World Premiere as the Opening Night film of the Encounters South Africa International Documentary Festival in Cape Town on Thursday 9 June 2011.

Bright says that this film “gives Mugabe the credit where its due. It’s an exploration of what happened to a promising African leader who was well respected and it recognises his fight for freedom and against Apartheid. But it also explores the forces that caused him to effectively destroy a lot of what he built.”

In parallel narratives, Simon Bright tells the stories of Rhodesia’s transition to Zimbabwe and the personal journey of Robert Mugabe, using one to explain the other, finally suggesting why Mugabe chose the road he has. As a biography it has everything: first-hand accounts of Mugabe’s early life with a desperately poor Catholic mother, what he was like at school, the effects of a Jesuit education and his rage against his absent father.

To learn more about the documentary

To watch the trailer of the film