/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-KENYA: Dangerous Affair

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Katy Salmon

NAIROBI, Nov 26 2002 (IPS) - ‘Dangerous Affair’, the first project of the newly-established Kenya Film and Television Professional Association (KFTPA), lifts the lid on the sexual intrigues of modern day Nairobi.

While the decadent shenanigans of white colonialists have been immortalised in famous movies like ‘White Mischief’, this is the first time that a real Kenyan love story has made it to the silver screen.

”It is a very familiar Nairobi-type story. It is amazing how many people have read the script and dragged us aside and said, ‘My life is so like this’. And that really tickles me about it,” says director Judy Kibinge.

The main character, Morags, is ”a very Nairobi sort of character – a total dog”, according to Leonard Ogembo, who plays him.

Morags meets glamorous Kui, who has just moved back home to Kenya from the United States.

”She epitomises everything he has been looking for in a wife. So he goes into this whirlwind of a romance with her and they arrange to get married,” explains Ogembo.

But the relationship soon hits the rocks and Morag slips into a much more comfortable affair with an old flame, Rose.

This does not stop the wedding plans, which are in full swing. ”Love and sex are two different things. Rose – sex. Kui – love. Remember?” recites Morags’ best man to calm his friend’s pre-wedding jitters.

”You love Kui and she is going to be your wife,” he reassures, dragging Morags into the shower to get ready for church.

”The flavour is just so Nairobi which is nice. But the underlying themes are so universal,” says Kibinge.

”It’s about faithfulness. It’s about wanting to get married to a certain type of person who is completely wrong for you and being in denial about the one who’s actually right for you,” she explains.

Kibinge co-wrote the script with Njeri Karago, the executive producer. Karago is also the founder of Baraka Films, which is producing the film, and interim chair of the KFTPA.

The KFTPA was set up in June by industry professionals who felt they were getting ”raw deals when foreign companies came in”, according to Karago, and so decided to set up a proper structure to jump start their own industry. One of the Association’s objectives is to produce more than one film a year.

Karago spent the last decade working on film in the United States for, among others, Black Entertainment Television. Last year, she decided it was time to return to Kenya and start making films about her own country.

”There’s a whole industry to be tapped into. It’s really a question of trying to hone our skills, learn the craft of film-making,” she says.

”I think the limitation has been that the film industry hasn’t been vibrant so people don’t really have the chance to learn. For me, this is really a learning exercise. It builds confidence and it will teach us,” she explains.

”Yes, we have our problems and challenges. But that’s the only way to grow. And it’s our own.

”Just throw people in the pool, sink or swim. And they are swimming because we are making the film and it looks good,” she smiles.

When thousands of ambitious young Kenyans are fleeing their crumbling, corrupt homeland, it is surprising that Karago decided to return home, in the middle of the worst recession Kenya has ever known.

She was driven by the desire for Kenyans’ stories to be heard – both by themselves and around the world.

”The view on Africans is very myopic globally. You see us in the rural areas, picking tea. Or you see us poverty-stricken. Where’s the human part of it? Where we love, where we hurt, where we cry? Where we are disappointed and heartbroken?” she asks.

”That’s an important human texture to give to us that we haven’t seen before and everybody needs to know. I think all those other images sort of dehumanise us whereas this is just saying, ‘Look they are human beings like everybody else,”’ she says.

Such feelings are widespread among the cast and crew of ‘Dangerous Affair’.

”All of us would like to see more Kenyan productions. All of us would like to see more positive stories coming up. We never see Kenyan stories being done,” says Ogembo, who gave up his job as a management trainer to take part in the five-week shoot.

”I see what Njeri is trying to do and I buy into that very strongly. So from that perspective I really wanted to support her. That’s what motivated me,” he explains.

”It’s something which I think each one of us has to support as a Kenyan. I think it’s a very noble idea,” he says.

Such commitment is necessary on a tightly-budgeted shoot, where everyone works 15 hours a day, six days a week.

”There is a real atmosphere of trust and people pitching in. A lot of people really worked for nothing the first couple of weeks because the money hadn’t come through. But that was not the issue. It was people coming in and thinking, ‘Hey, let’s just do this thing,”’ says Kibinge.

The next step is to organise distribution of the film. Kenyan television stations are notoriously hostile to screening local productions, often asking the film-makers to pay for their programmes to be broadcast.

‘Dangerous Affair’ hopes to tap into the video market, which provides the bread-and-butter business for Nigerian and Ghanaian films.

”A film industry can only attract people once they know that there is a career in it. One way film can be self-sustaining is if it goes straight to video,” says Kibinge.

”I think this is really going to get a lot of people dusting notepads, a lot of people with talent who previously thought there’s no future in doing that, starting to do it.

”That’s what we want to kick start, people thinking about film as something that you can do as a career, and enjoy and entertain people at the same time,” she says.

‘Dangerous Affair’ will be available on video from Dec 14.