Tobias Mupfuti was eight years old when he found himself homeless and living on the streets of Victoria Falls after his father had rejected him and his mother was too poor to feed or clothe him or send him to school.He survived on food handouts from tourists shopping in the Zimbabwean resort town.
Four years later, sick of being bullied and threatened, he asked a boxing coach to teach him the sport for self-defense – a decision that changed his life for ever.
Today, Mupfuti is running the Victoria Falls Boxing Academy, training underprivileged children and sending them to school in a story that inspired the first Zimbabwean film to be considered for an Oscar.
the short film, Rise, starring the Zimbabwe-born Hollywood actor Tongayi Chirisa, is based on the story of how Mupfuti’s life changed after meeting the coach.
> Just his humanity was a great privilege to try to portray. He is an impeccable individual, very deep, very nuanced
After learning to box, he started to train alone in the bush along the road to Victoria Falls airport in his early 20s. Several children started following him and he was offered the chance to use a classroom at Mosi-oa-Tunya high school as a boxing training facility.
He later bought his own land and built a gym to give
Chirisa, who plays Tobias, says spending time with Mupfuti helped him prepare for the role.
“The real-life gentleman’s story is amazing,” he says. “A selfless man,a man of humility despite the hardships and the struggles that he’s had to overcome.
“Just his humanity was a great privilege to try to portray. He is an impeccable individual, very deep, very nuanced and subtle.”
Chirisa, who played Cheetor in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, says Rise speaks to the need to nurture every child. “Rise’s character is similar to Tobias’s real-life experience. To find hope in a place of hopelessness is something that the story definitely extrapolated from,” he says.
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