by ·Comments Off on Sr (2024, Lea Hartlaub)

Billed as an essay film, actually a lecture slideshow – literally, with the kachunk slide-change sound. Giraffe trade across the world. Roosevelt drew boos for being a huge animal killer, he is so cancelled. They find ancient artworks and mentions of giraffes in different cultures, tracing their history. Dig the giant rock carving in Niger between a US drone base and foreign-controlled uranium mines. Record of a giraffe gift to the Chinese emperor. Israeli scholars debate whether God (via Moses) intended for giraffes to be eaten, with a follow-up on the presumed origin and final location of the Ark. Exciting return to the place in Kenya where Katy fed a giraffe. Dry German narration. I bet this was great for the woman we met in line who comes to the movies to see views of exotic countries, but it felt to me like a glacial two hours – there must be a more engaging way to get the material across. Pronounced “sir,” more or less. Q&A over zoom, we ditched to get a beer. A guy on lboxd says: “Personally, I had a realization of why girafarig is a psychic type so that was uplifting.” Nona Invie opened on solo keys and vocals, did a Linda Ronstadt cover.

by ·Comments Off on Rafiki (2018 Wanuri Kahiu)

The most colorful African movie we’ve seen – well-acted, a high-quality production with a timely subject. Shame about the weak and obvious script. At least that was my position before reading Sarah-Tai Black’s Cinema Scope article, which basically says to shut up about the conventional structure and narrative, since it’s a groundbreaking film in other, important ways.

Kena (right) and Ziki should’ve known better than to hang out near these spies:

Kena’s dad is a shopkeeper who recently ditched Kena’s very religious mom to start a new family, and he’s in a political race against Ziki’s dad (Dennis Musyoka, a small role in Sense8). Kena starts ditching her would-be-boyfriend Blacksta and the daughter of the local gossip when she meets Ziki, and the two start growing closer until, inevitably, they get caught, beaten, arrested, preached-at and prayed-for, and permanently separated. I’m pretty sure Kena becomes a doctor at the end and Ziki moves away.

Kena hashes things out with Blacksta, but spies are everywhere:

Katy and I have also seen Kahiu’s awesome dystopian short and her feature drama about people connecting in the wake of Kenyan embassy bombings, and will be sitting tight waiting for the next one.

by ·Comments Off on From a Whisper (2008, Wanuri Kahiu)

Just a couple weeks after we heard about a Kenyan sci-fi short making the festival rounds, there’s a free screening of the same director’s first feature here at the Carter Center. What luck! We didn’t quite get the full experience because the video subtitles were turned off, so we missed the Arabic conversations between lead security guy Abu (Ken Ambani) and his suicide-bomber Somali friend Fareed (Abubakar Mwenda). But they looked thoughtful and intense.

It’s a high-quality picture, with good camerawork, editing, lighting, etc., and good storytelling, jumping back and forth in time without calling attention to itself. Better than most of the Atlanta Film Festival flicks I’ve seen – surprising for such an under-the-radar debut African feature, but I guess it won two major awards at the Pan-African Film Festival just last month and swept the African Academy Awards (I didn’t know there was such a thing). Good soundtrack by Eric Wainaina, a huge music star in Kenya.

The mother of young Tamani (Corrine Onyango) dies in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing in Nairobi, but her important businessman father never tells Tamani, just says mom is missing. So when T. is older and back in town (she keeps getting sent to the States for something or other) she renews the search for her mom, eventually meeting Abu (whose wife is a fan of T.’s red-heart-adorned artwork), who finds out that her mom died in the blast. Tamani is understandably mad at her father for lying, but they work things out.

More interesting than the business between Tamani and her father (especially since the father, presumably played by Godfrey Odhiambo since that’s the only other name listed on IMDB, is the only not-so-good actor of the group) is between her and Abu (in the present) and Abu and Fareed (in flashback). Abu doesn’t display your stereotypical tortured guilt/anger, but talks calmly about missing his friend and trying to forgive him – a tough thing to say to a survivor of the bombing. Abu makes a good point that if he can forgive Fareed then surely Tamani can forgive her dad for never coming clean. Maybe dad made a foolish move, but he was just trying to be protective. Katy liked it, too.