Celebrate Lupita by revitalising Kenyan film

In December 1986, soon after Wole Soyinka received the Nobel Prize for Literature, Chinua Achebe told a gathering of the Association of Nigerian Authors: “… after the Oriki and the celebrations, we should say to ourselves: one of us has proved that he can beat the white man at his own game. That is wonderful for us and for the white man. But now we must turn away and play our own game.”
Achebe often lived in a literary world that drew sharp divisions between Africa and the West, one that was cynical about the benefits of globalisation. But there is value in his reflections on how we should use the might of Western accolades whenever they are conferred on African artistes and regardless of the politics that attends to the selection of winners.

The day after the American Academy Awards crowned Lupita Nyong’o the Best Supporting Actress 2014 for her role in 12 Years A Slave, we were focused on KCSE examination results in ways that lent ironic significance to Achebe’s wisdom.

Placed against our national rapture over best performing students who broadcast their dreams of becoming neurosurgeons, engineers and nuclear scientists, the Oscar seemed fortuitous.

Were the gods sending the country a message to say: let this seminal moment be the time when Kenya develops the Arts to the highest degree of excellence?

Our Arts have always struggled against great odds and random State support. Indeed, the factual and grammatical errors dogging the press advertisement through which the Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Culture and The Arts congratulated Lupita are ominous signs of the haphazard energies with which the State usually engages the Arts. 

But the Vijanaa Film Fund — a partnership between the Youth Enterprise Development Fund, Kenya Film Commission and Kenya Broadcasting Corporation — carries dynamic synergies that can ignite our film industry.

The partnership signals the need to bring together money, mentoring and, hopefully, access to archives. This can create valuable interplays between the past and the present.

The Uwezo Fund will also add to the bounty. Still, the staggering cost of film-making demands that we entice captains of manufacturing, banking and other service industries to invest in film in more ways than sponsoring events such as the intermittent Kalasha Film and Television Awards. One particularly alluring magnet for these industries is the huge space for product-placement of branded goods that films offer.

Capacity building is a big pillar in these new funds. But capacity building — the most abused of all NGO “activities” — must entail more than tuition on grant application procedures and t(r)icks on creative accounting. Capacity-building must yield real competencies in the entire value chain of film-making — from conception of the story to its distribution and marketing.

Mobility and international exchange programmes — of the kind undertaken by DOCUBOX, an East African documentary film fund managed by Judy Kibinge — create opportunities that are as important as the work of generating sizeable audiences.

As with our reading habits, our support for film is built on regurgitated rumours and hearsay rather than actual engagement with the films.

Many of us are expressing effusive opinions about Lupita in 12 Years a Slave yet we haven’t watched the film — not even from those bootleg Sh50 copies peddled by waMatha hawkers on Nairobi’s highways and sold in the alley shops of upcountry towns.

Incidentally, beyond knee-jerk shouts of “theft” and “copyright”, the value of music and film piracy is something we must discuss more fully some day.

Informed and critical audiences improve the quality of art. If we cannot line up to watch an Oscar-nominated film when it features a Kenyan, how will we fill up and support the theatres that should be built in all 47 counties?  

The real import of Lupita’s Oscar is not the suggestion that she played the part of Patsy with flawless, unmatched skill. Its real import lies in the acknowledgment of promise.

Art matters
And the promise bestowed on Kenya now is that parents no longer need to drive all their children to become doctors, engineers and lawyers because, suddenly, we can all see that art matters.

Lupita has shown that some are born with a gift and a passion that should be nurtured into greatness on a global scale, never mind how untraditional it is as a path to fulfilment, success and service to the country.

In Shuga, Lupita displayed remarkable skill, brilliant interpretation and absolute immersion. And when she did In my Genes, we knew that she valued the power of art as a platform for many (un)comfortable conversations in societies that are still torn between blind loyalty to a complex past and brave embrace of new but equally intricate ways.

We wait till minute 55 for Lupita to stride onto the stage of 12 Years. It is a long and uncomfortable wait, filled with graphic sights and sounds of horrendous brutality. But it is also a wait for inspiration when we see a Kenyan transported, with such conviction, to a world of regimented horror.

She faces that horror with raw courage and the innocence of a woman on the verge of maturity. She picks more cotton than any man but she also wants the basic dignities of nice smelling soap and a smooth skin.

There have been other moments in the past when Kenyan film threatened to burst into greatness. Simiyu Barasa’s documentary, History of Film in Kenya 1909-2009 does a fair job of noting the milestones and acknowledging the pioneers of the industry.

In 2010 Oliver Litondo gave a stellar performance in the bio-pic The First Grader, the story of Kimani Maruge, our 84-year-old beneficiary of free primary school education. In the 1970s, Litondo did outstanding work with the indefatigable Greg Adambo.

1987 was a high point in Adambo’s career. His Kolormask lit up the screen of Nairobi Cinema and was widely proclaimed as the first all-Kenyan motion picture, perhaps because it was fully funded by the State and maybe because many had forgotten (or did not know of) the 1968 film, Mlevi. Ragbir Singh produced Mlevi, which starred Litondo, Mzee Pembe and Kipanga Athumani.

In 1987 Adambo also produced Tushauriane, a family-planning television drama that sparked many public debates and launched new stars.

Amongst them was Kenneth Ambani who is best known for his role in another local soap, Tausi. Ambani went on to make a name in international film circles as Detective Abasu in the South African television series, Jacob’s Cross.

1987 marked another high when novelist Meja Mwangi, working as an assistant director, cast 13-year-old Edwin Mahinda from Kilimani Primary School, Nairobi in Kitchen Toto, a colonial-era period drama.

Other highs in Kenyan film include Sharad Patel’s making of The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin starring Joseph Olita as the blundering president.

It was a markedly different performance from the polished skill with which John Sibi-Okumu played Dr Ngaba in the 2005 adaptation of John le Carre’s novel, The Constant Gardener. Equally distinguished was the use of Ayub Ogada’s haunting ballad, Koth Biro, for that film’s soundtrack.

Kenyan film is, once again, on the cusp of greatness. We are not short of talent. Bob Nyanja, Willie Owusu, Wanuri Kahiu, Robby Bresson and David Gitonga demonstrate the range of imaginative directors in our midst.

This cast of competent artistes can be extended further through structured connections between the annual schools drama festival and the film industry. 

Such connections must come through strategies that move beyond aping the one-size fits all policies of WIPO, UNESCO and other international actors in the creative industries. Our policies must grow from our realities.

To rejuvenate creativity, the reality of wasted rehearsal and performance spaces like Eldoret’s UG Arts Theatre is one of the first things we should address.

Rejuvenating creativity is the best way to celebrate Lupita’s victory, using it to (re)turn to our own game and make it a perennially winning act.

Dr Nyairo is a cultural analyst. [email protected]. Twitter: @santurimedia