On the rise with Jessie J. Rowlands

What does it mean to you to win a YDA?

It's a huge honour. To have my directorial debut recognised by the YDA feels like an incredible recognition at the start of my directing career. The YDA has such a strong track record of championing emerging directors, so it's exciting to now be among them.

How did you get into directing?

I've been working as a screenwriter for the past eight years, and I've always loved telling stories, but directing was always the goal. I have a very clear vision for how I want my films to come to life, and directing is the only way to fully realise that.

I never went to film school, and after years of waiting for the right opportunity, I decided to stop waiting for permission and just make a film. I went home to Zimbabwe and made RISE. It became my directorial debut, and I fought for every inch of that film - to raise the money, convince people to believe in it, and bring the story to life. Making it taught me more than any film school ever could. It was the first time I was able to tell a story exactly as I imagined it, and I knew almost immediately that I was doing what I was meant to do.

I never went to film school, and after years of waiting for the right opportunity, I decided to stop waiting for permission and just make a film.

What was the inspiration behind RISE?

RISE was inspired by the true story of one of my closest friends, Tobias Mupfuti, who runs a boxing gym for vulnerable children in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. My mum lives there, and I spent some important formative years of my life there, so it's always been a place that feels like home to me. It's a place I associate with a deep sense of nostalgia, warmth and possibility.

RISE was inspired by the true story of one of my closest friends, Tobias Mupfuti.

Watching Mupfuti dedicate his life to creating a safe space for children who had very little inspired me enormously. Through boxing, he gives them discipline, confidence and hope. I wanted to celebrate him and the extraordinary kids he works with.

 I'm drawn to underdogs, to people fighting against impossible odds, and to the relationships that change lives.

At its heart, RISE is also exactly the kind of story I love telling. I'm drawn to underdogs, to people fighting against impossible odds, and to the relationships that change lives. There's something timeless and deeply intimate about the story of one child, one mentor, and a dream that feels just out of reach, especially in such a specific and personal location. 

Mupfuti trusted me completely with his story. That was an incredible privilege, and one I never took lightly. More than anything, I wanted to honour him, the children he has dedicated his life to, and our extraordinary community of creatives in Zimbabwe by creating something really authentic and special that we can all be proud of. 

How long was the shoot?

We shot for nine days, entirely on location in Zimbabwe.

Above: A selection of BTS photographs on the set of RISE.

What was the most challenging aspect of the project?

Zimbabwe is an incredible place to make a film, but it definitely requires a bit of extra tenacity. Every day felt like solving a new impossible problem.

For one sequence, I wanted to capture Victoria Falls from an angle that had never been filmed for narrative cinema before. That meant the crew scrambling down a steep gorge with all our camera equipment, climbing across slippery rocks in the spray, and racing the clock because we only had about thirty minutes of sunlight. Miraculously, we got the shot.

Then there was the train. We needed a moving passenger train, but there simply weren't any running in the entire country. So my producer somehow convinced the railway to put one back on the tracks, persuaded the retired train driver to come back for the day, and we drove our 44-person crew 22 hours in a truck just to shoot one scene. Independent filmmaking at its finest.

That's the thing I love about Zimbabwe. There's a phrase we use all the time when things go wrong: "Make a plan". Nobody starts by telling you why something can't be done, they start figuring out how it can. There's an extraordinary ability to take limited resources and turn them into something far greater than the sum of their parts. That spirit became part of the production. Every obstacle was just another problem to solve together, and I think that ingenuity, optimism and refusal to give up is woven into the DNA of the film.

What have you learned during the process of making this film?

I learned that conviction is contagious.

When you really believe in a story, people start believing in it too. RISE only exists because hundreds of people chose to back something that, on paper, probably shouldn't have been possible. That taught me that directing isn't about having all the answers, it's about giving other people something worth believing in.

RISE only exists because hundreds of people chose to back something that, on paper, probably shouldn't have been possible.