From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to Nairobi Half Life: Over 50 years of film in Kenya

This paper, traces the birth, growth and development of Kenyan voice in film since the dawn of film in the country to present. It further interrogates one Kenyan film with a view to establish the extent to which the Kenyan voice imbues Kenyan films with a unique vantage point when presented to the rest of the world. Thus the question guiding the paper is ‘how has Kenyan film incorporated conventions of filmmaking and language that Cinema employ, while at the same time discerning and maintaining the indigenous, Kenyan voice and how has this been achieved over years. Finally the conclusion reveals that after a period of over 50 years Kenyan films made by Kenyans redefine Kenya; telling Kenyan stories, reflecting the Kenyan life, culture, values and making statements about the Kenyan society without ‘aping’ westernized storylines  which could  demean the Kenyan culture

Vitimbi as a Commentary of Kenya’s Socio-Political Experiences

The essay analyses Vitimbi (1975-2014), a theatre text aired on Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. Using the family as its setting, the text wittingly accounts for the socio-political realities of everyday life in post-colonial Kenya. In the main, the essay interrogates how the producer of Vitimbi uses the family to image socio-political issues in post-independence Kenya. The focus is on how the producer uses the family conflicts and interactions as an allegory of the post-colonial nation-state. The artistic use of the family allows me to examine Mzee Ojwang’s family as a microcosm of the large society. The producer realizes this task by inextricably knitting familial and patriarchal structures on one hand with social, economic and political experiences on the other against a backdrop of Kenya’s history. The essay, therefore, problematizes characterisation within the domestic setting to establish how characters are used to address political nuances