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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blind-ambition-film-the-zimbabwean-refugees-who-conquered-the-wine-world-sqnbm2r0c Blind Ambition: the refugees who conquered the wine world A tale of four competitive Zimbabwean tasters hits all the right notes Kevin Maher Saturday August 06 2022, 12.01am, The Times It’s the Cool Runnings of the wine-tasting world. That’s the elevator pitch, anyway, for the fascinating new documentary Blind Ambition, which, much like the 1993 John Candy comedy about coaching the Jamaican national bobsleigh team, finds heartwarming humour and inspirational power in the story of four black Zimbabwean refugees who, against all odds, break into the snooty world of wine tasting and eventually compete against the best of the best in the World Blind Tasting Championships. The film, which captures the four Cape Town-based sommeliers preparing for, and competing in, the 2017 championships in Burgundy, France, hits all the right notes. There’s an introduction to the loveable underdogs, the initial setback (they need sponsorship), the progress montage, the arrival of the eccentric coach (the French veteran Denis Garret) and the eventual high-stakes competition — our heroes must identify 12 wines blind, naming the grape variety, the country of origin, the region, the producer and the vintage. It’s basically a nonstop blast of feelgood entertainment. Right? “The very first time we spoke over Zoom with the guys we got that Cool Runnings feeling,” says the Australian film-maker Warwick Ross, seated next to his production partner and co-director Robert Coe in the offices of a London movie company. “We thought, ‘Whoah! This is going to be fun. These guys are great.’ But the more we spoke with them and heard about their stories, the more we realised that we were going to have to anchor the film in something more important.” The Sydney-based pair learnt about the Zimbabwean sommeliers while shooting a previous wine-themed documentary, Red Obsession, narrated by Russell Crowe. By the time they had committed to shooting Blind Ambition in September 2017, the wine-tasting championships were only three weeks away. They quickly managed to raise a budget (£700,000) on a quirky Cool Runnings premise, but the reality of the men’s stories soon began to undercut the wacky fish-out-of-water mood. The team captain, Joseph Dhafana, for instance, was smuggled out of Zimbabwe in 2008 by way of a hellish train journey, trapped in a steel container with 45C heat outside. He speaks about it with difficulty in the documentary (the directors edited out the parts of his story that were “too horrific” to relate). Others fled from Zimbabwe directly into anti-immigrant hatred in Johannesburg, where newly arrived Zimbabweans were frequently hacked to death, and sought safety in the church of the preacher and refugee activist Paul Verryn. He is shown in the film pleading: “The world needs to wake up to the fact that migrants are not cockroaches and pests that need to be stamped out.” So, about the zany Cool Runnings feeling? Coe says that this was the constant challenge throughout the filming and post-production (they edited, and re-edited, throughout the pandemic). Too much and it would have been wildly inappropriate. Too little and it would have been preachy. “At one point we went down a rabbit hole of telling a huge part of Zimbabwean history in the film, but then the pendulum had swung too far to the other side. But you remove that and suddenly it’s too light and happy and Cool Runnings. That balance took some time, but we knew that the film had to be about the seriousness of what these guys had endured, but also, you know, fun.” Right on cue, three of the sommeliers, laughing and joking, stroll into the room to join us. They are Dhafana, the buoyant, churchgoing Marlvin Gwese and the thoughtful, sensitive Tinashe Nyamudoka. The trio have been out exploring London (they are here for a special premiere screening of the movie) and are spectacularly late for our chat (they are, I am told, on “Zim time!”) and are soon joined, on a Zoom screen from his new home in Amsterdam, by the team’s fourth member, Pardon Taguzu. The four waste no time in wading into the central dilemma of the movie, and agree that the two Australians found the right tone. Nyamudoka says: “When they started filming, the initial story felt very much like, ‘Hey, let’s just record these Zim guys competing in France!’ But eventually Rob started asking, ‘So, how did you guys end up in Cape Town?’ And that’s when I knew, ‘OK. This is really going to showcase the seriousness of what’s going on.’ ” Taguzu chimes in from Amsterdam: “But I had my reservations because I knew the stories we were going to talk about were political. But it was also part of our stories and had to come out.” And Dhafana? Was he comfortable with discussing his traumatic journey across the border? “It is tough what happened to me, but back then, when it happened, it wasn’t documented so all I could do for the film was to give my narration. It was real, it was raw, it was exactly what happened, and these guys [the directors] managed to capture it. They chose to take the marrow from the bone and give it to the world.” Naturally, the film also has plenty of lightness, most of which comes from the hapless French coach Garret. He seems at first to fit that sports-movie formula of the idiosyncratic oddball who will come good by the end (think Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own). He’s knowledgeable, rides a motorbike and doesn’t care for the rules. Yet without spoiling anything he proves a far more destructive presence. “We couldn’t have scripted it better,” Coe says, shaking his head in disbelief. “He injected utter chaos into that drama.” Dhafana, half-chuckling, refuses (with a smidgen of reluctance) to denigrate Garret and only adds: “Look, he’s a good guy with a great heart, and he’s your elder, so you have to respect your elder. But he can easily get carried away, and if you don’t control him he can derail things very quickly.” We move on to the nuts and bolts of their craft. As four of the most respected sommeliers in South Africa, who graduated from the best restaurants in Cape Town and frequently tour the world as wine judges, they dole out handy hints for the best wine-tasting experience. No garlic or curry beforehand, for a start (they neutralise the palate). And, curiously, no adrenaline. You need to be calm, apparently, to be a good wine aficionado. When the adrenaline’s pumping, the taste buds, according to Dhafana, are muted and out of balance. And it helps too if you’re from Zimbabwe. No, really. Nyamudoka’s theory is that it’s all about memory, awareness and being away from home. “I think what characterises the Zim sommeliers, or the four of us in particular, is to do with memory,” he says. “Wine tasting is all about memory, and about really, really, remembering what you’ve encountered. And for us, I feel that we Zimbabweans observe and articulate what’s around us because it’s not natural to us. We easily remember what we’ve tasted.” The men end with a deep discussion of their complex feelings for Zimbabwe. They have successful careers in South Africa (Dhafana and Gwese own wine brands), but they still nurture a yearning for home. Ross says that this is the soul of the documentary and why it is buttressed by ravishing drone shots of the Zimbabwean countryside, like an abandoned paradise yet to be re-entered. Nyamudoka says: “A great winemaker once told me that if you want to be really prosperous and do tangible things in your life you have to do them at home. And I feel that strongly.” There’s a momentary silence and a hint of maudlin reflection from the group. Then, thankfully, Taguzu crackles through on the Zoom from Amsterdam, where he’s thriving as a wine importer. “You know, you can feel at home sometimes in other places, but home is really where your roots are,” he says. “And, for me, I think about home almost every day.”
Blind Ambition is in cinemas from Aug 12
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