By Agencies

Blink Films is in production on “Lost City of Gold,” a landmark documentary for The WNET Group, ARTE and theatrical release, revealing the largely unknown story of a mysterious southern African ghost city that was once home to up to 20,000 people. For decades, historians claimed the site was too majestic and sophisticated to have been built by African people.

Dan Chambers, Creative Director at Blink Films, said: “Lost City of Gold is a revelation-packed film with exclusive access to the African-led team as they uncover gold and other hidden treasures, and forensic analysis from world renowned experts, which reveals a whole new understanding of a forgotten pre-colonial superpower – and how colonialism wiped it from history.”

Professor Shadreck Chirikure, Lead Archaeologist, added: “The story of Great Zimbabwe has been dominated by outsiders… Now we are here to change that. We are here to reclaim the history of Great Zimbabwe.”

“Lost City of Gold” (1×60’) has secured exclusive access to archaeologists excavating the buried ruins of Great Zimbabwe, located in the heart of southern Africa. Surrounded by giant stone walls standing 40 feet high and 16 feet thick, it is the largest precolonial man-made structure in southern Africa. Once a thriving metropolis filled with gold and treasures from across the world, alongside intricately carved African artefacts, Great Zimbabwe was a vast medieval African city. By the time European explorers encountered it, however, it had largely fallen into ruin and today remains little known to the wider public.

A new excavation, led by Zimbabwean archaeologist Professor Shadreck Chirikure of Oxford University, who was born less than an hour from the site, seeks to uncover the truth behind this extraordinary location.

The team aims to determine who built it, how its inhabitants amassed such wealth, why it was abandoned and why its story has been so widely overlooked. Their research reveals that Great Zimbabwe was not merely an African city but the centre of a gold-rich civilisation with trade routes extending as far as China.

The documentary features interviews with researchers across Africa and beyond as they reconstruct the city’s dramatic rise and catastrophic fall, and examine how it was erased from the historical record.

When European settlers encountered the site in the nineteenth century, many claimed that Africans were incapable of constructing such a monumental city. They instead attributed its creation to Arabs, Persians or other non-African peoples, while looting artefacts and valuables for private collections. When an archaeologist challenged these narratives, the British colonial government suppressed his findings and restricted further excavations.

It has only been through the sustained efforts of archaeologists, including Professor Chirikure and a new generation of Zimbabwean researchers, that the site’s origins as an African-built precolonial city have gained broader recognition.

“Lost City of Gold” is produced by Shermane Henlon, with Nick Tanner serving as edit producer, directed by Ben Holgate and executive produced by Tom Adams and Dan Chambers. PBS Distribution is the global distribution partner. Blink Films is a Tin Roof Media company.