The Woman With No Face

‘The Woman With No Face’ follows the story of beauty queen and young mum Tambudzai Makinzi – Tambu to friends and family – as she undergoes a pioneering operation here in the UK to remove a giant 2kg tumour which has destroyed her face, taken her eyesight and robbed her of her sense of smell. Her daughter Pearl, now five, has never seen her mother’s true face.

In a desperate attempt to save her life, Tambu travelled 6000 miles from her home in Cape Town to London to meet an extraordinary surgeon: Professor Iain Hutchinson. The Prof is known throughout the world for taking on cases nobody else will tackle and set up the research charity Saving Faces, funding pioneering development into facial trauma and disease, and he agreed to take on the operation free of charge.

The Prof described her operation as “the hardest reconstruction [he had] ever done in his career”.
Captive Minds followed Tambu’s journey throughout her two life-saving operations to create a documentary that looks into ground-breaking 3D technology and the incredible bravery and recovery of one woman living with a disfigurement.

The Campaign

Tambu’s family are desperately trying to raise money to foot the £200,000 bill for her time in intensive care and Captive Minds, alongside producing the documentary, raised the profile of ‘The Woman With No Face’ and her campaign with PR.

Metro
The Woman Whose Face Was DEVOURED By Cancer: Mother, 27, Undergoes 39-Hour Surgery To Remove 2kg Tumour And Rebuild The Hole Left In Her Face’

Huffington Post
‘The Woman With No Face’: Surgeons Remove 2kg Tumour From Woman’s Face In New Channel 5 Show

Reveal
Click here to watch. Available until September 2016 in the UK