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When the country's censors blacked out scenes from the film adaptation of the bestselling erotic novel, "Fifty Shades of Grey," many Zimbabwean movie lovers couldn't care less. They soon had another option, which was more explicit and cheaper.

The southern African nation's continued economic difficulties have led to such a successful black market of pirated DVDs that many cinemas have been forced to close. Many Zimbabweans now prefer the small screen in their living rooms, watching pirated copies of new film releases to save money, and in turn bringing the curtain down on the big screen experience.

Before the Zimbabwean dollar collapsed under record 231 million per cent inflation in 2008, cinemas were common in cities and towns. Even in the poorest neighbourhoods, local councils ran cinemas that were a hit with children and adults. Today, only five movie theatres remain in the country of 13 million people.

"A movie costs a dollar. Going to the movie houses costs $6 per person. You can do the math and you see why I stay at home," said 26-year-old Samantha Baranza, a clerk at a Harare automotive spare parts distributor.

Traders swarm Harare's streets, openly displaying a variety of pirated movie titles on the capital's sidewalks. Dozens of hawkers mill around shopping malls trying to sell pirated movies and music.

Despite public campaigns against piracy and pledges by police to stamp out piracy, street trader Quinton Rushushe openly carries a bunch of DVDs in his hands. Dozens more discs are in his satchel as he jostles for customers with hordes of other traders trying to sell copies to motorists and shoppers at Fife Avenue Shopping Center, just a few streets from the police headquarters.

"Police officers can't afford to go to the movies so they are our loyal customers. Some of them give me their phone numbers and I always call them when a new exciting movie is out so they can buy while it's still hot," he said. Selling pirated discs is the only job Rushushe has known since leaving school in 2012. He said he gets his wares for 30 cents a copy from a friend "who has a computer." On a good day he sells up to 15 copies at a dollar each.

Police spokesman Paul Nyathi said: "We have arrested dozens but the challenge is that piracy is closely associated with vendors who are mushrooming everywhere so it's not an easy battle."

With the closure of many companies, over two thirds of adult Zimbabweans have resorted to informal trading, according to the African Development Bank. First Lady Grace Mugabe has warned police against targeting vendors, who she says are simply trying to beat harsh economic conditions.

Struggling to survive, the remaining movie distributors are experimenting with new marketing strategies, such as giving away free movie tickets at pizza houses, slashing prices by half on certain days and advertising in neighbourhoods via megaphone.

"Business has been going down. Our major competition is coming from home entertainment, which is what most people are resorting to nowadays because of the cheap DVDs flooding the streets," said Tawanda Pswarayi, controller at movie distributor Ster-Kinekor, which has the only remaining cinema houses in the country. At times, only 10 people arrive to watch a show in a 200-seater auditorium, he said.

Zimbabwe's strict censorship has made the cinema even less entertaining. In February, only two of the three cinemas left showed "Fifty Shades of Grey," but heavy censorship cut out so many sexually explicit scenes that movie distributors decided to stop showing the tame edit after only a few screenings. A little more than a week after its release, pirated copies of the film hit the streets, selling for as low as 50 cents a copy and bypassing censorship.

In buildings where movie theatres once existed in Zimbabwe, evangelical churches are now frequently flourishing. Daily services are packed.

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-09-2015, 10:37 PM:
 
Somebody should make a Kickstarter.
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-10-2015, 03:14 AM:
 
Maybe the content industry might also start to realize that you can't win a fight against piracy in a country where almost nobody can afford a movie ticket at near Western price levels...

Also, in a market so battered by insane inflation, it's practically impossible to keep a business afloat without becoming very creative. I for once would start selling movie tickets in exchange for stuff like packets of cigarettes, would be interesting to see if Hollywood would like to see their cut being paid in packets of cigarettes too.
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-10-2015, 09:41 AM:
 
Sounds like great fodder for jokes...

< Some movie > did terrible numbers In LA on opening week...

Yeah, but it's doing great in Zimbabwe!


 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-10-2015, 01:13 PM:
 
It seems to me that Zimbabwean exhibitors have two separate problems: their economy is one, and their censors are the other.

When the economy comes back, the movie theaters will come back with it. As the vox pop quotes show, Zimbabweans aren't watching knock-off DVDs at home because they don't value the communal, theatrical experience of going to the theater: they do so purely and simply because they can't afford it.

It's an interesting comment on the global economy, though, isn't it? In one of the poorest countries in the world, a typical middle-class citizen (I'm thinking about Ms. Baranza) can afford to have a TV and a DVD player in her home, but not to go to the theater. So consumer electronics are so mass-manufactured and so cheap that they are now available to pretty much everyone in the world. But a large building, the labor to run it and the IP that goes into making the movie to show in it are now beyond what many can afford. It's a total reversal from, say, the 1930s, when theater admission was almost given away, but only the affluent were able to afford a radio or a phonograph in their homes.
 

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Posted by Steve Matz (Member # 1890) on 04-14-2015, 01:11 AM:
 
Same Country that someone sent me an email from, saying I had an account that had 3.2 Million Euros in it and wanted to Transfer to my Local Bank ASAP. Just needed my SSN, Banks Route Number, and my Account Number. Of course I jumped on that immediately and did as they asked. I should be getting those 3.2 million euros any time now...
 

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-14-2015, 04:41 AM:
 
You didn't forget to pay the 5K Euro advance fee didn't you? Or else you'll be waiting or your money forever.

quote: Leo Enticknap

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When the economy comes back, the movie theaters will come back with it. As the vox pop quotes show, Zimbabweans aren't watching knock-off DVDs at home because they don't value the communal, theatrical experience of going to the theater: they do so purely and simply because they can't afford it.

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About 10 years ago I was in the Ukraine. They just went trough their previous revolution and stuff was looking a lot brighter for them back then than nowadays. I was there to look at some streaming media implementation a local telco had set up. They produced their own hardware and were streaming Hollywood movies to their subscribers, this was still a few years ahead of streaming services like those offered by Netfix and Amazon.

They had a very slick interface and were streaming a gigantic library of old and also just-released-on-rental movies, directly to their subscribers and this in an almost third world setting. Their primary "datacenter" was just a shack in a ramshackle building, but it worked.

When I asked their CTO about how they got the licensing done (we were in dire negotiation with the studios back then, not one would even give in an inch, wanted absolute exclusivity or DRM which was out ot of this world), they clearly told me: Listen, the average household here lives on anywhere between 50 and 150 euros a month. Nobody and really nobody is going to pay 20 or even 5 euros for a DVD or 100 euros or more for a software license.

Then I asked him if he wasn't worried about legal measures he told me: Look, we've got other issues here right now. Before our legal system will even consider looking at those kind of "luxury problems", a lot of other things have changed around here...

So much for protecting your IP in those kind of markets.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-16-2015, 02:16 PM:
 
When I visited China in 2008, a mid-ranking local government official in Shanghai told me that as far as she (and I suspect, the entire Chinese government) is concerned, the Berne Convention and attempts to impose copyright protections across international borders were simply a weapon in the west's "soft power" war, and that they were having none of it. Once a piece of western software, IP or media was inside China's borders, then as far as the Chinese government is concerned, anyone can do what they like with it.
 

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