The 35mm newsreel Federal Spotlight was produced by the Central African Film Unit and played predominantly to white audiences in the cinemas of the Federation. From 1957 until the end of the Federation in 1963, CAFU also produced a monthly 16mm newsreel, entitled Rhodesia and Nyasaland News, which played primarily on the mobile cinema circuit to local African audiences. However, this was afforded far less prominence, time and financial investment than Federal Spotlight (Burns, 2002, 98, 100). While Federal Spotlight was produced for exhibition within the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, ‘vigorous efforts’ were made to get items filmed for the Spotlight into newsreels overseas to promote the Federation on an international level (Smyth, 1983, 134). An example of this is the second item within this edition – Once upon a Rhino – which featured in Pathe News and in British Movietone News (under the title ‘One of the Family’) in November 1962.

This story of Rupert the Rhino was also reported within the British press. In May 1962, the Daily Mirror ran an article reporting that ‘Rupert the Rhino is an orphan. His mother died on a flood-swept island in Rhodesia’s Kariba Lake when he was about a month old. A game ranger rescued the baby rhino a fortnight ago’. The press reports followed a similar tone to the newsreel. ‘Now Rupert is living it up in the garage of the Condy family’, the Mirror added, ‘Sleeping on clean straw. Warmed by infra-red lamps. Getting two regular pints of milk a day. And fussed over by the whole family’ (Daily Mirror, 28 May 1962, 3). A couple of months later, the same paper published a two-page feature entitled ‘There’s a Rhino at the bottom of our garden’, discussing how ‘Ricky the terrier’, a family dog of John Condy, a Government Veterinary Surgeon living six miles from Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, had decided to be ‘pals’ with the new family pet, Rupert the Rhino (Daily Mirror, 19 July 1962, 12).

Rupert the Rhino was saved as part of Operation Noah, a major wildlife operation between 1958 and 1964, which aimed to rescue and relocate animals that were stranded after the construction of the Kariba Dam had led to the flooding of the Zambezi valley. The Central African Film Unit covered Operation Noah in depth, most notably in John Roulet’s film Bring Forth Every Living Thing, and earlier issues of Federal Spotlight showed the relocation of rhinos from the flooded plains (for example, Federal Spotlight No. 112). A recent piece in the Daily Mail, entitled ‘The Extraordinary story of Rupert the Rhino’, tracked down Mike Condy (the young boy in the film who was eight at the time) and his childhood friend and neighbour, Simon Ford, who recalled their memories of life on the farm. The article described how a team, led by Rupert Fothergill and including John Condy, had rescued Rupert by building a raft from oil drums and tree trunks, on which to carry stranded animals to safety (Rupert’s mother ‘was too heavy, slipped off and drowned’). Rupert would live on the farm for a year, until he became too big, at which point he was released back into the bush (Daily Mail, 17 November 2006).