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Small viewership on big screens: What is ailing the local film industry?

Swimming

Fundi-mentals vs Constant Gardener

As locally produced comedy Fundi-Mentals entered its second week at I-Max last weekend, film enthusiasts seemed keener on which movie would carry the day at the Oscars come Sunday night. Oscars! Yes, Hollywood stuff!

The media was all about Lupita Nyong’o in Hollywood and remained anxious about her red carpet moment as well as her 2015 moment at the podium, this time not for another win but for award presentation.

So we now know that she hit the red carpet in a plunging custom Calvin Klein gown featuring a pearl embellished bodice the same way we know that Birdman and Grand Budapest won big over Boyhood and American Sniper, movies we have queued for to full house. And we loved them. A lot!

Even after casting celebrated film actors and celebrities to boost its popularity, Fundi-Mentals, Kenya’s latest film on the big screen is suffering poor viewership, just as other movies produced locally. We are talking about Nairobi. Kisumu and Mombasa awaits.

Apart from Nairobi Half Life and House of Lungula, the local film industry seems to suffer indifference from its own.

It is now more lucrative for film makers to move into TV production, which Kenyans seems to have taken up at the expense of local full-length, feature films.

With the wide viewership of local TV drama productions, it can hardly be argued that Kenyans don’t like their own - it is that something is wrong with the big-screen culture in Kenya, especially in relation to local films.

With some of the best, international filming locations, brilliant producers, directors and thespians to showcase, why would the industry’s achievements still be pegged on Nairobi Half Life, a film that was released three years ago?

The 2012 film was the first Kenyan movie to be submitted in the category of Best Foreign Language at the 85th Academy Awards.  Joseph Wairimu won Best Actor at the 33rd Durban International Film Festival. It was up for nine nominations in the 2013 African Movie Academy Awards and Nairobi Half Life won one - Achievement in Sound.

Come last year, two years since the movie came out, it won four awards at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVC) for Best Lighting Director, Best Art Director, Best Cinematography and Best Make-up Artiste.

Before Nairobi Half Life came, other movies that put Kenya on the global map were by foreigners. Out of Africa (1985), Constant Gardener (2005) and The First Grader (2010) are notable films, with all either produced or acted by foreigners.

“There is a problem when it comes to the consumption of local films in the country,” says Brian Munene, an actor, director and scriptwriter.

“Case in point, Fundi-Mentals is one of the best marketed films I’ve seen around, but I went to I-Max and the cinema hall had about eight people, when the lobby was full of people waiting to watch a foreign film.”

Brian explains that popularity of popular programmes like the Real Househelps of Kawangware, Mshamba, Hapa Kule and others cannot relate to the film scene as the markets are different.

“You will never see a person who loves local programmes line up to watch a local film,” he said, adding that Nigerian films are popular because they are shown on TV.

“If they were shown in cinemas, not many people would go watch them.”

The Kenya Film Commission has not helped. Quickly gaining notoriety for banning films like like Wolf of Wall Street and 50 Shades of Grey, the commission has given the red card to local productions like Otto: The Bloodbath and Stories of Our Lives, with the reason being that the first was ‘too horrific even to an adult’ and the second ‘promoted sexuality’.

Local film producers are now starting to look away to market their art. Stories Of Our Lives premiered in Toronto late last year while Otto, interestingly, won Best East African Film in the Rwanda Film Festival. According to the makers behind Stories, former Just A Band member Jim Chuchu, George Gachara and Njoki Ngumi, they submitted the movie just to stay safe.

“We applied because we didn’t want to have to screen the film under the radar as if it was something we were ashamed of,” they said. “We hoped that the board would look at the film for what it is and make a decision outside the politics.”

Part of the problem, according to Kenyan Hollywood actor Benjamin Ochieng’ Onyango, who recently appeared in God Is Not Dead, is the casualness with which the players take the film industry.

“Shooting local film is also expensive and the people behind each movie try as much to recoup the costs, which sometimes do not happen,” said Brian, who estimates that Kenya shoots eight contemporary films a year.

“I think the Kenyan movie industry is definitely on the rise. We’ve had some good things happen to the industry in the last couple years with The First Grader, Nairobi Half Life and Lupita winning an Oscar,” says Brian, adding that Kenya is on its way to even greater things in the years to come.

“The only solution will be if the film culture among most Kenyans changes,” he opines.

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