Simple example on how to use Python Zipfile to make a compressed archive. Here additional care is taken to provide an arcname, such that the root is avoided in the archive.

simple_example_zipfile.py

files = [path/to/file, path/to/file2, path/to/file3]
with zipfile.ZipFile('/tmp/test.zip', 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) as out_file:
    for rel_filename in files:
        absname = os.path.abspath(rel_filename)
        root = os.path.dirname(absname)
        filename  = os.path.relpath(rel_filename, root)
        out_file.write(rel_filename, filename)
        print(absname, root, filename)