Asiba: Film maker who would put Kenya on the world map

He was the founding director of the Kenya International Film Festival and head of marketing at the Nairobi-based Union of National Radio and Television Organisations of Africa, (URTNA).

Sadly, Mr Charles Asiba is no more. The film personality died in Nairobi on Thursday last Week, having succumbed to a kidney condition. He had been undergoing regular dialysis, which had kept him out of the limelight for most of this year.

As the head of marketing at URTNA, Asiba, a graduate of design at the University of Kent, created his wide network of contacts. URTNA was a post-independence bid to strengthen African television content by encouraging public broadcasters across the continent to share content and reduce their reliance on foreign suppliers. This way, they aimed to position their platforms closer home.

Asiba used to describe himself as the defender of the creative works in Africa. Occasionally, he would throw a jab at the Kenya Film Commission, where he once served as a board member, or even the government, on film industry matters.

When he called me last November, I knew something hot was cooking. His festival, with new exciting slots like the mobile phone and the student sections, was meant to be held in October, but there were several obstacles.

'I am injecting fresh blood'

“There is change of tact,” he told me when we at the Java Coffee House along Kimathi Street, Nairobi. “I am injecting fresh blood into the running of this thing to give it new momentum,” he said before breaking into usual probing smile, as if not sure it was a good thing. He was in the company of Sagwa, a young filmmaker with great international exposure.

“I want to do what you have always been telling me to do.”

I had been urging him to delegate festival duties to younger, more energetic guys and play an overseer role as opposed to running the entire operation single-handedly. Though he would agree, he was cautious due to expectations vi-s-vis available funds most of the time; he mostly operated from his home and even spent his own funds. At some point, KIFF was sharing his office on Koinange Street.

I have known Asiba for many years. We would disagree over some issues, but that would not bar him from sharing a cup coffee with me when opportunity came.

We also agreed on a number of issues, especially on the need for a better government-funded film industry.  

It is Wanjiru Kinyanjui, a key player in the Kenyan film industry, who introduced me to Asiba. That was at the French Ambassador’s residence near Kibera in Nairobi, where we had congregated for champagne and cheese to mark Bastille, the French national Day, on a chilly July 14, 2006.

At the time, the pair was working on the inaugural edition of the Kenya International Film Festival (KIFF) that succeeded the Nairobi Cine week whose final edition attracted serious criticism due to poor organisation. Asiba was taking over as the executive director with Wanjiru as the chairperson of the trust.

Both were working very hard to ensure their debut went smoothly.

In more than one way, Asiba personified the struggles of the Kenyan cinema. He would be in Cannes Film Festival one day trying to seal deals, before moving on to Ouagadougou’s Fespaco, trying to link the budding East African industry to the rest of the world. His was clearly a daily hustle on very scarce resources and lots of politics to deal with.

As a festival director, there were dozens of films to collect. As an international film festival, KIFF had to screen films from across the world.

This meant serious mobilisation. Then there was the fund-raising, the trickiest part of any African festival especially in the later years when most of the arts funding from Europe was cut, thanks to the austerity and shifting global interests.

Charlie, as many would call him, was daring and inventive. When he went ahead to close sections of the Koinange Street for the festival, he had a serious carnival in mind, the kind that Brazilians hold every year, or what Nigerians have created over the years.

There were fashion parades, music and plenty of food. That was on the first edition. Serious debates followed, especially now that the street came to be better known as a red light district, an image that the carnival was meant to clean up. Asiba later left to concentrate on KIFF after some disagreements with his partners, crippling the event at its second edition.