Audiences full of praise for Kenyan film makers

Three Kenyan directors earned acclaim from audiences at an annual African Film Festival in New York this week. The Kenyan film makers, all women, accounted for four of the 36 documentaries and features screened at Lincoln Center, Manhattan’s premier cultural venue.

The New York event offers opportunities for Kenyan directors to network with other African film makers and talk to potential distributors, says Ms Judy Kibinge who entered two films: Killer Necklace, a fictional treatment of a young man’s life in a Kenyan slum, and Coming of Age, a short documentary depicting the country’s post-colonial political history.

For free

Ms Kibinge, a 42-year-old former advertising executive, is seeking outlets for Coming of Age, a 12-minute film which dispassionately examines issues of democracy. The film is yet to be widely shown in Kenya even though she offered it to TV networks for free.

Ms Lupita Nyong’o, 26, was greeted with sustained applause following the screening on Tuesday of her full-length documentary about the lives of Kenyans with albinism. In the Genes is intended, Ms Nyong’o says, as “a celebration of humanity, of difference” rather than a lament for the discrimination experienced by Kenyans with the condition.

The film is being distributed in the US by Third World Newsreel. In Kenya, Ms Nyong’o plans to rely on NGOs such as the Albinism Society of Kenya in arranging showings around the country. “There’s no real distribution industry in Kenya,” Ms Nyong’o said.

One of the festival’s big hits was From a Whisper, a film set during the run-up to the 1998 US embassy bombing in Nairobi. The film was shown in New York soon after it won five awards, including Best Picture, at the African Movie Academy Awards in Nigeria.

Ms Wanuri Kahiu, the film’s 27-year-old director, was not on hand following a screening on Tuesday, but audience members praised the film in a session with its art director, Kay Tuckerman.