NOT so many local artistes can speak of their work with as much authority as award-winning filmmaker, Rumbi Katedza.

Katedza has been a signpost of the industry that has grown in leaps and bounds and rightly so, because her success has been unstoppable ever since she left radio for the film industry in 2000.

"I have loved radio ever since I was with Radio 3 as a presenter/producer," she said in an interview last week.

"With all this interest in that medium I left for my first real love, filmmaking."

Katedza has had a lot of exposure having been privileged to live in the USA, Japan, Italy, Canada and the UK.

And her fiction writing has been published in Women Writing Zimbabwe (Weaver Press 2008), the BTA/Anglo-Platinum Winners Collection (2008) and the contemporary writing journal, Illuminations (2009).

"I believe my work ethic is in the belief I have of the arts in Zimbabwe.

"A lot of hard work and push is what one needs in this industry. I guess the staying power is in the people I have been exposed to internationally and locally," Katedza said.

On the strides the film industry has made, she says a lot is starting to happen including building of audiences who have a particular liking of the locally produced feature films.

Katedza said: "In the early '90s the Nigerians were creating terrible productions. Over years we now see a different crop of producers who are committed to quality.

"This is the reason today that Nollywood is respected in Africa and has a wider following."

Unlike in the past where filmmakers from Kenya and South Africa would come to impose ideas, locals were now up to the task, she said.

"We are now looking more at commercial feature films rather than commissioned short films that are mostly donor-driven.

"In the past it was always difficult due to the fact that it would take about seven years for an African to produce a feature film due to technological disadvantages.

"Now we have digital film and the equipment can be bought across the border. It's easier, it's doable."

But who is Katedza?

Katedza's own films include Danai, for which she was nominated for Best Director at the National Arts Merit Awards.

Her short film Asylum has been screened at over 30 international film festivals and won Best Short Film at the Images of Black Women Film Festival in the UK and at Human Rights Nights Film Festival in Italy.

She is also known for directing music videos and her past credits include videos by Jazz Invitation, Roki and Leonard Mapfumo, Roy & Royce and Achuzzi.

Over the years she has worked in production management on several film and video productions with companies from around the world.

She was distribution manager at the Media for Development Trust, responsible for a catalogue of over two hundred films and, later, she became Director of the Zimbabwe International Film Festival, a position she held until the end of 2006.

While at ZIFF, she was instrumental in expanding its outreach programmes and cementing its international presence.

Katedza is now a writer, producer and director of narrative and documentary content through her company, Mai Jai Films.

Last year she launched ZimbabweFilm.com, a comprehensive Zimbabwean film promotion website in an effort to highlight and showcase Zimbabwean films and filmmakers to a wider audience.

Her most recent project Tariro (Hope) will be screening at the International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF). It was expected to start showing on Friday to Wednesday at the Harare Gardens.

It is a documentary on which Katedza served as mentor-director to a group of young filmmakers.

Tariro is the empowering story of a young Zimbabwean woman from Epworth, Tecla Tambandini, who overcomes hardships and abuse.