Benignity: A Film Shaped by Time, Tested by COVID, and Carried by Human Truth

A few seasons ago, a man known mostly for videography put pen to paper and began shaping a story he believed needed to be told — a story that needed not only to be heard, but to be seen.

With no prior experience in feature film production, and coming from a background rooted in documentaries, Tinashé Todd Mombeshora took on a daunting task: to transform an idea into a full cinematic experience. The challenge demanded more than passion. It required a team — one capable of rewriting, refining, capturing sound, perfecting angles, and translating emotion into moving visuals.

And so a creative collective was formed. The film’s crew brought together a dedicated team.

Together, they began the painstaking process of building the world of Benignity — from the script, to the scenes, to the casting.

The first faces to come on board included William Mutumanje (popularly known as Acie Lumumba), Karen Paida, Simbarashe Mombeshora, Shingai Mokina (The Moxinator), Sindiso Ndlovu, Rumbidzai Takawira, and Tafadzwa Mombeshora, among others.

But like many creative projects, the journey of casting and production was not without its turns. As the team searched for the final puzzle pieces — including the lead female character — time kept moving, and the world itself soon changed.

Somewhere between the film’s beginnings and its completion, COVID-19 arrived.

Production slowed, schedules shifted, and like countless other industries, the film world was forced into uncertainty. Yet, rather than collapse under the weight of delay, Benignity became something else entirely — a project built on resilience.

A key turning point came when one of the film’s major roles needed to be recast. Through the recommendation of Peggy Mvududu, a trusted media professional, broadcaster Patience Musa was approached and introduced to Mombeshora. She was presented with the vision, the story, and the urgency: the film needed its lead female character.

She accepted.

What followed was not merely a shoot — but a journey that would stretch across years, shaping the cast and crew into what many describe as an unexpected family.

And perhaps that is what makes Benignity special.

It is not simply a film; it is a reflection of human experiences — the kind of experiences that are familiar, uncomfortable, and deeply real. It carries echoes of things people have seen, lived through, survived, and questioned. Each cast member, each crew member, became part of a shared effort to weave personal truth into performance.

At its heart, Benignity is a story of love. But it is also a story of loss — loss of oneself, loss of loved ones, loss of belief, and the quiet, difficult process of finding one’s way back.

Yet even in the act of finding one’s way back, the film dares to ask an unsettling question: what if healing arrives too late?

The story explores friendship, hard lessons, and the complexities of adulthood — relationships of all kinds, and the institutions that shape human lives, including marriage. It is a film that speaks to choices, consequences, and the moments that redefine identity.

To say too much would be to spoil it.

But what is certain is that Benignity offers more than entertainment. It offers reflection. It offers discomfort. It offers truth.

Benignity brings through a cast like no other — a cast that is unbelievably new, refreshingly unfamiliar to the world of cinema, yet remarkably bold in their delivery. And perhaps it is in the surprise of the personalities within this cast that audiences will be drawn in — curious to see how convincingly they tell the story, and how well they carry emotions many would struggle to express. If that is what leads the masses into cinemas, then so be it. Because just maybe, audiences will walk in expecting “personalities”… and walk out stunned at how effortlessly they became the characters within the story.

And for audiences willing to sit through its emotional turns, it may offer something even more powerful: the chance to find pieces of themselves within the characters, the scenes, and the silences in between. It may remind them of the friendships they once took for granted, the love they mishandled, the apologies they never said, and the people they lost while believing there would always be more time. And perhaps, in watching the characters navigate pain, regret, and redemption, the audience may be left with something quietly life-changing — the ability to recognise their own place in life, to confront the truths they have been avoiding, and to find the courage to turn things around for the better, while there is still time.

Benignity is set to premiere in cinemas this Friday the 13th, marking not only the release of a film, but the unveiling of a story that survived time, uncertainty, and a global pandemic — and still made its way to the screen.