International Film Festival Rotterdam

The fourth film in the HBF x Hivos Online Series is Something Necessary by Judy Kibinge, available from Friday 31 January 2014, 11:00 hrs (CET) for 24 hours worldwide (except in Germany, the UK and Switzerland) on the IFFR YouTube channel. Something Necessary was given a Hubert Bals Fund grant for Post-production Support in 2012.

Something Necessary shows the impact of the 2007 post-election violence,

Election violence based on ethnicity is a recurrent phenomenon in Kenya, but the destruction in 2007 was unparalleled. Youth gangs egged on by politicians roamed the country for three months, plundering, raping and murdering. Some 1200 people were killed. Over 300,000 Kenyans fled. The International Court of Justice in The Hague is still investigating suspects.
Anne is one of the victims: her husband dead, son in a coma, farm destroyed and she herself ended up in a hospital bed. For the sake of her child, she wants to build up her life again, whatever the cost. She meets Joseph, who was on the side of the culprits during the riots. He is burdened by guilt, but is still under the control of the gang he was a member of. Both look for a way out.
Something Necessary tells the true story. The film primarily shows how complex things are when it’s not about the statistics of a conflict but the people behind the numbers.

Hivos in Kenya

From behind the scenes, Hivos supports independent cinema in Kenya. Hivos is partner of the Kenya Media Programme and the Big Fish School of Digital Filmmaking that aim to improve the quality of journalism and filmmaking in Kenya. To help Kenya have a free, fair, peaceful and credible elections Hivos partnered with Ushahidi, a Kenya technology developer, and various civil society organisations to come up with the joint initiative Uchaguzi to monitor Kenya’s electoral process. Uchaguzi means ‘election’ in Swahili. Hivos facilitated the process of creating an election monitoring platform in 2013.

About the director
Judy KIBINGE (1967, Kenya) moved to the US and later to the UK during her childhood and studied communication in Manchester. After her return to Kenya she worked in advertising and became the country’s first black creative director. Since 1999 she has dedicated herself fully to film. She is the driving force behind film production house Seven, established in 2006. Her debut A Dangerous Affair received an award at the Zanzibar Film Festival in 2003. Something Necessary is her third feature film.

African Metropolis is a series of short fiction films that tell urban tales about life in major African metropolises, a unique partnership towards new African cinema. The films were made in six African cities – Abidjan, Cairo, Dakar, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi. Kenya’s entry is Homecoming by Jim Chuchu. His film conveys a voyeur’s obsession with the girl next door, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, science fiction and fiction.

The films were developed over a period of one year with workshops held in Durban and Berlin. This film project is an initiative of Goethe-Institut South Africa and South African executive producer Steven Markovitz, with support from Guaranty Trust Bank plc and the Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

In July 2013, African Metropolis premiered at the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF), one of the most important film industry events on the continent. Two years of intensive preparation lead up to the premieres: Based on 40 scripts submitted, the film makers were chosen from the six cities. A mentoring programme and workshops ensued, which started off at the Durban Talent Campus in July 2012. Rasha Salti, Head of international programming at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF),

If the African Metropolis Short Film Project is to be continued (…) an intriguing testimony of contemporary film making may emerge – a testimony of a continent that has served as a projection screen for rigid and superficial clichés for too long.

All six of the African Metropolis films get their European premiere at the 43rd edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR 2014) and their US premiere at the 29th Santa Barbara Film Festival. Homecoming will screen at the CinemAfrica Film Festival in Sweden (19 – 23 March). Read about all the entries in the project below.

Nairobi

Homecoming, Directed by Jim Chuchu, Nairobi, 2013 © Homecoming

Homecoming

Directed by Jim Chuchu
Language: English / Kiswahili
Subtitles: English

Fantasy, science fiction and infatuation fuse as an obsessed neighbour invents ever-stranger scenarios for wooing the girl of his dreams.

Nothing is what it seems as Max – a nerdy voyeur – turns fiction into truth and the mundane into the unexpected in his quest to get the attention of Alina – the girl next door. The city of Nairobi is threatened with imminent extinction, and now is his chance to save her and verbalise his unspoken desire. However, a mysterious stranger stands in the way of his happiness. Will Max overcome his fear and save the girl? Is Alina looking for a hero? A quirky, light-hearted look at obsession and the desire to be seen.