By Ogova Ondego
Published September 17, 2013
Men in Africa are considered bread winners and protectors of families. But what happens when conditions attached to the modern day cash economy and not to hunting and gathering turn these traditional providers into beings who have to depend on women, they that have always waited at home for the men to bring food to them? TAMED, a film by Mwendwa Mutua that is scheduled for screening during the 69th Lola Kenya Screen film forum (LKSff) at Nairobi’s Goethe-Institut on September 30, 2013 at 6.00PM, explores this new social order.
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The chicken is an extremely important bird among the Luyia community of western Kenya; it has social, economic and cultural (nay, religious!) significance. But did you know that the gizzard, known as imondo, is the most valuable part of a slaughtered chicken and that any disagreement over who eats it can make or break a nation? IMONDO, a music video by Deejay Msalaba, appears to say so using an art form that was invented in the black ghettos of New York, USA. It shall be shown alongside TAMED on 30.09.13.
Has it ever bothered you what happens to the colossal amounts of money sank into Africa in the form of ‘development aid’? It is estimated that some US$600 Billion (about 463 billion euros) has been poured in Africa over the past 50 years ; no end to the aid is in sight.
Prominent “do-gooders” of the entertainment industry such as Bono, Bob Geldorf, Angelina Jolie and Madonna, continue to pressure western politicians to pump more development aid into Africa as an ever-increasing number of African development aid workers, intellectuals, political activists, economic experts, and sociologists begin to criticise this flood of aid.
Why has aid not produced visible progress in Africa’s development during the half a century it has been pumped into the mother continent? This is captured in Süsses Gift/SWEET POISON, an 89-minute German/Austrian co-production made in 2011 by Peter Heller of Germany that shall be shown and discussed during the 70th monthly Lola Kenya Screen film forum at Goethe-Institut in Nairobi on October 28, 2013 at 6.00PM. The film looks at three development aid projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Mali.
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LKSff, that prides herself in seeking, identifying and presenting new talents in film on the global platform, is often one of the first places where new films can be seen and new talent spotted.
LKSff is held every last Monday of the month throughout the year; it is part of the Lola Kenya Screen audiovisual media festival, skill-development programme and marketing platform for children and youth in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa region.
The initiative of ComMattersKenya in conjunction with Goethe-Institut, LKSff is a specialised platform for practitioners in the eastern Africa audiovisual media sector.
LKSff, that was first held on December 15, 2005, is aimed at critiquing, encouraging and exploring ways of integrating film production in Kenya and eastern Africa with other socio-cultural and economic sectors in order to come up with a vibrant film industry.
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