Maramba Simbirirai Solomon

Born in Accra, Ghana to a chief’s granddaughter and an exiled political activist from Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in 1976, Simbirirai Solomon Maramba was brought up in Zimbabwe. His education at primary and secondary level cultivated an insatiable appetite for reading and introduced him to the arts and sciences. He was at home performing in the orchestra and jazz bands and leading the percussion club as well as participating in some back stage production for theatre. His involvement in the sciences lead him to the pursuit of a degree in robotics at the University of Cape Town where his love of the arts surfaced yet again finding form in a collaborative effort to conceptualise and subsequently organise the first University of Cape Town Arts Festival in August 1998.

These diverse interests somehow culminated in the development of a self taught animator who partnered to form a small creative production house in Zimbabwe, Enchant Creative that provides specialist character animation, visual effects and interactive development services to the advertising industry and is in development of some animated series.

In 2007 Solomon was instrumental in the establishment of the Joint Afrikan Animators Group (JAAG) in an effort to develop the animation industry in Africa.
In 2008 as part of the initiatives of JAAG at the Zimbabwe International Film Festival (ZIFF) he participated in training animation and conducting production focuses. He wrote, directed and produced his first short film, Tariro - A Peace of Afrika and was director on Heart of Heart’s, one of the ZIFF Short Film Project films.