This was followed by her historical docudrama 'Flat 13'for ETV - written, directed and narrated by her and edited by cinematographer and editor Steven Cholerton. It was showcased at the 2009 Durban International Festival (DIFF) jointly hosted with the Berlinale International Film Festival and screened twice at The Suncoast NuMetro cinema by public demand, alongside the films of celebrated film-makers. (This despite Flat 13 being made on a shoestring that was left of its budget for the actual filming after the high costs of obtaining the archival footage and photos interspersed in this documentary).

Later nominated that same year for Best Director at China’s 10th Sechuan International Film Festival out of 3962 entries from 62 countries, Flat 13 was then screened in SA's Parliament and schools countrywide to showcase the social cohesion that had existed between SA's diverse ethnic groupings during the struggle to overthrow apartheid, a cohesion subsequently fractured - as overt racism reared its ugly head again in post-Apartheid SA.

Distributed internationally by 'Off the Fence', an Amsterdam- based film company, on ETV's behalf the US's PBS TV channel also sought to screen Flat 13 to its vast US audience but ETV (now eNCA) refused to grant PBS permission to do so, not least because this docudrama, to which eNCA owns the rights, was the last interview that an ailing President Nelson Mandela had been prepared to give on camera, a special favour he'd granted to Zarina, one which eNCA still feverishly guards and covets for itself.

Notably, having frequented Flat 13 as a 22 year-old law student, President Mandela had gone on to declare - in his autobiography ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ - that ‘Flat 13 is 'where the first seeds of non-racialism were sown and the concept of a nation came into being'. Those fearless 1950's Flat 13 activists, who, along with him, were to become leading politicians, writers, artists, poets and musicians, included the likes of Walter Sisulu, Nadine Gordimer, Ismail Meer, Ruth First, Sophie de Bruyn, Ahmed Kathrada and Hugh Masekela, icons of the liberation struggle who, like Mandela, would be turning in their graves today at how their legacy has been squandered.

Following this venture into documentary film-making Zarina then attended UCLA's Online course on Feature film Screenwriting, where she was awarded the coveted Nate Wilson Award for Screenwriting for one of her student scripts, such screenwriting training having equipped her further for new ventures into storytelling in novels and film alike.