About the cinema industry in East Africa and the "Kenya time"

 This Thursday I went at the Opening Ceremony of the Kenya International Film Festival, the KIFF. It was all taking place in a mall called the Junction in Kilimani, where stand one of the most popular movie theatre in Kenya.

I was looking forward to see a Kenyan movie that was announced as a big film, a movie that could travel abroad, which is, as I imagine you know, pretty rare. The film by Bob Nyanja is called 'The Rugged Priest"; it is inspired of the true story of Father John Kaiser, an American catholic priest who came to preach in Kenya in the 1990s. He started fighting for more rights for his community and against corruption, and ended risking his own life.

More about Father Kaiser:
http://www.nairobiliving.com/component/content/article/15-presscentre/740-kiff-2010-opening-night-ceremony.html?directory=5

The screening was scheduled at 6.00pm, but it was wishful thinking to imagine it would start on time. As we were standing in the movie theatre's hall, I started talking with people from the crowd. Young filmmakers, directors of film schools, journalists, diplomats, all this crowd started patiently waiting for the guest stars. I was thought about the 'Kenyan time', meaning no event ever starts on time in Nairobi, we have to get used to it. It turned out that we were not only waiting for some cinema stars, the Kenyan Vice-President has been invited at the last minute to perform a speech...

Two hours and 30 minutes later, the Vice-President's delegation arrived, and we were lucky enough to be given a wonderful speech from the Alliance Francaise's director, partner of the festival, another speech from the Minister of Culture, and finally the long-awaited speech from the VP... Lucky us.

One of the important point of all this seriousness is probably the will to develop a real film industry in East Africa, and in this project Nairobi really wants to become a leader. The Kenyan film industry has the potential to generate 40 billion of Kenyan schllings to the economy and 250,000 jobs annually, according to the Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka. 

The film itself deals with Kenya's deepest and strongest flaws... Corruption, violence, sex abuses in politics, but also poverty and a malfunctioning justice system. It was a bit ackward to watch it with all the Ministers and civil servant in the theatre, but maybe it is going to help fighting against those drifts.

The festival will last until October 30. This year is the 5th edition. Many African films will be presented as well as European and American movies. It is also hosting a few conference about cinema in Africa and a competition. The main venues are the Alliance Francaise, the Silverbird Cinema at the Junction and Westgate. You can get the programme on the Festival website: http://www.kifftrust.org/.

Enjoy.