#Junction_Nairobi

Adam, a mentor and boxing coach, strug­gles to shield his pro­tégés from the reach of an extrem­ist recruiter. As more of the young men fall to the trap­pings of easy … read more

Doc­u­men­tary film making in Kenya & Pakistan  - How to start and where to go to Pan­eld­is­cus­sion with Judy Kibinge, Docubox (Nairo­bi) & Haya Fatima Iqbal, Doc­u­men­tary Asso­ci­a­tion Pak­istan (Karachi) The … read more

with sub­se­quent panel discussion

A mys­te­ri­ous wooden object from Kenya is stored in the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. All that is known about its origin is that it was entered in the inven­to­ry book in 1903. Why does­n’t the museum know more about it? This does not seem to be unusu­al in Europe: Count­less non-Euro­pean objects are hidden away in depots and have never been exhib­it­ed. Their exis­tence is there­fore known nei­ther to the local public nor to the soci­eties of origin.

Two young film­mak­ers, he from Kenya, she from Ger­many, want to find out more about this object. Since it is not pos­si­ble to take the phys­i­cal object with them, they create a 3D dig­i­tal copy and go with us on an adven­tur­ous jour­ney with an open end. They get access to the archive in Stuttgart but no access to the museum in Nairo­bi. They encounter angry youths in the streets of Nairo­bi and skep­ti­cal but knowl­edge­able old people in the vil­lages of the Kikuyus. They find out a lot - both about the object and about our common his­to­ry and ongo­ing rela­tion­ship as Kenyans and Germans.

Nom­i­nat­ed for African Movie Acad­e­my Award 2020

Elena Schilling, born 1991 in Tomsk, Russia. Since 1997 living in Ger­many she stud­ied rhetorics and phi­los­o­phy in Tübin­gen. In 2016 she start­ed study­ing film direct­ing at Fil­makademie Baden-Würt­tem­berg. She was involved in design­ing the web portal „Daheim in der Fremde“ des Hauses des Doku­men­tarfilms, Stuttgart. 2019-20 she man­aged the Kinder­filmhaus Lud­wigs­burg. Cur­rent­ly she works on her final thesis film and inde­pen­dent mixed media projects. Short films: HEUTE NICHT (2016), NETTE KERLE (2017), SCHREIBTISCHTÄTER (2017), 82 QUADRATMETER (2018).

Saitabao Kai­yare is a script writer and film­mak­er. In 2019 he par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Inter­na­tion­al Class at Fil­makademie Baden-Würt­tem­berg. He realised the short films PSYCHO (2015) and CLASH (2016) and wrote the script of the middle-length fea­ture SEPTEMBER (2015, R: Mark Wambui).

Direc­tor: Elena Schilling, Saitabao Kaiyare;
Camera: Artur Ortlieb, Garry Sonneborn;
Mon­tage: Matthias Wölbing;
Sound: Bela Brandes;
Pro­duc­tion: Ann-Katrin Boberg, Mumo Liku, Daniela Fritz
Con­takt: office@elenaschilling.com, kaiyare@baruucollective.com,
Web­site: www.ifobjectscouldspeak.com

 

If Objects Could speak - What would you answer?

Panel dis­cus­sion on the han­dling of Kenyan objects in German museums

with His Majesty Haye Dr. Mako­rani-a-Mungase VII, King of the Pokomo people and offi­cial cus­to­di­an of the Ngaji, the Sacred Drum;

George Juma Ondeng’, from the Nation­al Muse­ums of Kenya, project man­ag­er of the German-Kenyan Inter­na­tion­al Inven­to­ries Program;

Dr. Sandra Fer­ra­cu­ti, anthro­pol­o­gist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rome and former cura­tor of the Africa Col­lec­tion at the Linden-Museum Stuttgart.

Mod­er­a­tion: Carsten Stark

EXPLORING AFRICAN ORATURE IN THE DIGITAL AGE Making up a story is not so hard. We all do it on a reg­u­lar basis. But how does one make a sto­ry­teller? … read more

- Pre­miere – Orig­i­nal­ly a play writ­ten by the direc­tor her­self, this film is a prod­uct of closed the­atres in pan­dem­ic times and it is a set­ting we are all … read more

THE LETTER is Kenya´s offi­cial sub­mis­sion to this year´s Acad­e­my Awards. Karisa Kamango´s grand­moth­er is accused by his cousin of witch­craft on social media, what leads him to leave the … read more