12 min

Language: Kikuyu, English subtitles

Director: Amirah Tajdin

His To Keep is a short film by Kenyan filmmaker Amirah Tajdin.

It’s a film about a Kenyan man’s struggle to deal with painful memories of his and others’ resistance efforts to colonialism. A phone call forces hurtful experiences to the fore and he realises that time does not necessarily heal all wounds. He remembers loved ones he lost and contemplates the meaning of such pain. His To Keep screened at the CinemAfrica Sweden festival.

Besides making short films, Tajdin draws, DJ’s, creates wall murals and sculptures. She enjoys making films about social misfits, exploring cliche’s and trying to re-present them to the world. 

In keeping with her penchant for telling stories of the disenfranchised, Tajdin’s talent is displayed yet again in another short story Ciné Kenya featured here. Flourescent Sin a story about a drag queen thats is experiencing terrible heartbreak.

The film witnesses the drag queen’s poetic pandemonium; both self and body are stuck in Nairobi railway station’s no man’s land. “I’m stuck between where I’m supposed to be and where I am” — both a lament on his/her body, and a literal comment on the act of waiting at a train station, and the self-reflection waiting induces. Amirah Tajdin deftly melds the now iconic familiarity of Nairobi station, with the odd-beauty of the drag queen, playing on the expected and unexpected.

Another short story with a PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) theme related to colonial war is Tabatô. Which Ciné Kenya featured here.