• Though 12 minutes long, it feels much longer, yet leaves you thirsting for more of it
Image: COURTESY
Johnte is a 25-year-old man who works at a call centre. On this day, just like every other, he’s leaving work for home, something which necessitates him to walk across the CBD, from ‘uptown’ to ‘downtown’. During this walk, he notices how the CBD looks attractive to the west of Moi Avenue. A mural of Eliud Kipchoge next to I&M Towers.
Cabro-lined sidewalks run along the whole Kenyatta Avenue, from Kipande House to Kimathi House. A beautiful couple strolls by as if the world around them doesn’t exist. Maybe that’s why romantic people look into their partner’s eyes and whisper to them, “You are my world.”
Once he gets to Moi Avenue, he is welcomed by hawkers being chased away from their ‘invisible’ stalls by the kanjo. It then hits him that he’s crossed the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and now he’s in the ghetto part of the city. Time to quit the attractive trance he had portrayed of the city and face the ugly side.
To evade the scavenging kleptomaniacs, he takes off his white shirt, revealing the brown dusty T-shirt he’d worn underneath. With this done, he crosses over to The National Archives and walks all the way to Ronald Ngala Street, where the nganyas to Umoja are. Before he can even board one, he witnesses, right before his eyes, the robbery of an innocent man. Everyone just looks on, before going on with their business, as if it’s the norm here. Leo si siku yake.
The matatu drives off to Umoja, and every 10 minutes, one of the common digital lender apps keeps reminding him, via text message, to repay the loan he had taken, lest he be thrown into the CRB. What threat is the CRB, though, to a man with nothing? It might as well be a title in his CV. These messages couldn’t have come at a better time, seeing that his employers have delayed the salary payments for the previous month, and thus, only the Sh50 in his pocket separates him from abject poverty, though it will soon be forfeited to the matatu tout as payment of fare.
Immediately he alights, he is met by the sight of his friends, casually chewing miraa while having a chat, and they waste no time in begging him some money for more. Having already mentioned the sorry state of his pockets, he humbly declines to do so, mumbling to himself that there’s no way some people just laze around and expect other people to provide for them.
Outside his house, the neighbouring couple is having a quarrel. The wife chases away the husband from the house with a mwiko, cursing him never to return. Seeing Johnte’s observant eyes still lingering over her, she dismisses him, and goes her way.
Johnte finally gets to his humble abode, and believe me when I say ‘humble’, for it really is the perfect embodiment of one. The door loudly creaks open, much like the entrance to the Greek Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. It leads him to a house with meagre household items, almost as if he took the Christian phrase ‘our riches are stored in Heaven’ quite literally. Facing the mirror, he thanks the Almighty Father for delivering him home safely, because the unspoken rule, as those who’ve lived in the ghetto know, is: “Kama hautaki kuporwa, basi fika home mapema.”
The mirror, however, doesn’t reflect his image back. As if the modern-day depiction of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, an inner voice in his head, represented by his reflection in the mirror, starts castigating him for the miserable life that he’s living. It reminds him that there’s nothing to look forward to in his life, since even all his meals have been relegated to ugali mayai like the typical bachelor. Not to mention how the loan sharks are baying for his blood due to the debts he owes them.
This voice bears not the slightest remorse and even persuades him to commit suicide, for there clearly is nothing exciting in his life if this is the sorry predicament that has befallen him. Johnte turns and looks at the rat poison lying on the table next to him. Never has it looked as appealing as it does tonight.
At this point, would I have burst your bubble when I mentioned that this is actually a film? Yes, welcome to Kanairo! Both the city and the film. ‘Kanairo’ is a short film made by the Nairobi-based motion picture company Real Strike Studios Ltd. It was produced by Clementina Kabutha and directed by Cecimercy Wanza. The film, which was released in February, stars Jeff Omondi (currently acting in 'Becky' on Citizen TV) as Johnte. Though 12 minutes long, it feels much longer, yet at the same time, leaves you thirsting for more of it.
I first watched it at the Sond3ka Awards 2023, where it had been nominated for the ‘Short Films’ category. We got to watch the whole of it, and I was so captivated, particularly by how I related to it, not about the suicide part, but rather the ghetto razzmatazz. The film went on to win the Sond3ka Awards that night, though I later came to learn that this wasn’t the only coronation they’ve received in the recent past.
On March 25, they were nominated for two awards at the Rwanda International Movie Awards, both the ‘Best Short Film International’ category and the ‘Best Short Film in East Africa’ category. Before they could even celebrate this feat, they were nominated the next day by the Golden Short Film Festival for the ‘Golden Producer’ category. This didn’t end there, and in the next three months, they got nominated by the Festival del Cinema di Cefalu, F5 FPP Financial Focus Film Fest and The Film Joint, while getting an honourable mention at the Student World Impact Film Festival.
One month later, they got nominated to the Lumiere International Film Festival & Awards, as well as the Soleil Space Short Film Saturdays. Just a month ago, they scooped the ‘Quality Education’ award at the NGO International Film Festival. Of notable mention is that the NGO IFF is a film organisation that looks for stories themed around the Sustainable Development Goals to promote a knowledge-sharing culture of solutions. Therefore, out of the 2,000 films selected from all over the world, Kanairo scooped this award for their ability to showcase life in the city of Nairobi from the average man’s perspective.
The film actually does this well, for at the end, right after Johnte’s contemplation on suicide, the screen rolls over to show us some of the most notable facts and statistics about depression. We, for example, learnt that, almost 500 people are reported to have committed suicide in the 3 months between April 2022 and June 2022, with 78 per cent of them being male, according to a report by The Guardian. It, therefore, serves as a quality education film on depression, as asserted by the jury of the NGO IFF awards. At the moment, they’ve been nominated in the Zimbabwe International Film Festival and the African Film Festival.
The film has been screened internationally in London, USA and, this month, its tour bus will park at Vancouver, Canada. For those who’d love to watch it locally, check it out on Vimeo or on Soleil Space, and make sure to share it with your friends. You can also check out Real Strike Studio’s Instagram page to see more of their activities. This is in the spirit of uplifting Kenyan films, just as Abel Mutua’s film 'Click Click Bang' has made it to Netflix, arousing the interest of so many film enthusiasts about local production.
'Kanairo' has seen a major success in just one year in the market, and it is everyone’s hope that the future proves to be even brighter, even though the weather at the moment isn’t. Kama wewe ni wa Kanairo, make sure umewatch Kanairo!
Image: HANDOUT