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Arts Film/Cinema Film review/recommend A Kenyan experience
Arts Film/Cinema Film review/recommend A Kenyan experience
| A Kenyan experience |
| Written by Christian Hofverberg |
| Monday, 26 October 2009 23:20 |
 One of the most talked about films on last week’s Ubuntu Film Festival was the Kenyan movie 'From a Whisper'. Director Wanuri Kahiu missed her first flight to the festival but when she did arrive Urbanlife made sure not to miss a word. Visibly taken by the chilly Swedish autumn director Waniru Kahiu welcomes a warm cup of tea as she begins to tell us how she took her first steps into the art of filmmaking. Very surprisingly it was a controversial subject that first got her hooked on the idea of making movies. - I fell in love with filmmaking at the age of sixteen when I walked into an editing studio. They were editing a documentary on female circumcision, which is not fun, but it was at that time when I first realized that people actually make films and TV, she says with a spark in her eyes. Her parents wanted her to do a “real” degree, as the concept of saying that she wanted to become a filmmaker in Kenya was according to Wanuri Kahiu like saying she wanted to become an astronaut. So she did her undergraduate studies in business and then went to UCLA to get her master degree. The business degree, however, has not helped her in her career as a director she says. Waniru Kahiu’s movie, 'From a Whisper', is a two parallel story about the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The movie follows Tamani, a young woman who lost her mother in the attacks, and also Abu, who’s best friend Fareed was one of the bombers. - Initially people were pitching to do this film, but they only pitched to do documentaries. I pitch to do a regular movie because I felt that documentaries often become stiff and only end up talking about statistics, Wanuri says about the creation of the movie. She continues by saying that she wanted to tell a personal story and one of the most important things for her was that the portrait of the bomber also became very personal. - I didn’t want the bomber to be seen just as a bad person but rather as a human being who made a choice. People need to break out of their concepts of Africa. |
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/Caroline Karaara
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