Originally published in Sisters of the Screen: Women of Africa on Film Video and Television. Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ, 2000.
Several conversations took place by electronic mail during the month of February 1999 between Washington, DC and Kenya.
Wanjiru, you are among a visible group of women from Kenya who are emerging in the field of film, video, and television production. Could you begin by talking about your experiences with the image while growing up in Kenya?
I've always been fascinated by storytelling and the theater in which I used to take part in school. When I was young, my imagination seemed to function visually. For instance, I could make believe the creatures I was reading about were around me somewhere and what they looked like. An example is that when I read Erich Kästner's "Emil and the Detectives" in 2nd class, I transplanted the whole story into my everyday location, Nairobi. The characters were mainly little boys wearing tattered khaki shorts and shirts, all ganging up together in the streets. It is only when I studied Erich Kästner at university level that I realized that it was a German story, a German storyteller, and a German location!
My experiences of cinema and images are the Saturday nights in boarding high school where we were shown films like old James Bond, Mary Poppins, and other rather innocent films. Outside of school, we would sneak off from home to go into Indian films, which we understood without language: We were teenagers and curious about love and romance. At English language class outings, we would go to the British Council in Nairobi to see mainly BBC Shakespeare productions (in class, we read Hamlet and Macbeth mixed up at random with some African writers). I studied English, and later drama for a Master's degree and German Literature in Berlin. Significantly, and some say perversely, considering I am "third world," my thesis was entitled "Shakespeare's King Lear: Loss of Identity and Discovery of Self." It had a lot to do with seeing: visual, inner-vision, seeming, being, and so on.
So this began your evolution in the cinema?
Well, my love for story-telling rather than writing academic papers got the better of me, and before I finished my MA degree, I had decided to make the plunge into a world which is full of characters and their stories. I therefore applied and was accepted at the Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie (DFFB), where I felt I had found "it"! At the film school, my basic problem was to get the Europeans to co-operate with "an ignorant black woman." We had to work very practically and help each other in each of our productions. But no one in my class would invite me to work on their projects, because they probably did not think I was capable! Well, beginners generally are not, and I therefore decided that I had to resort to another plan in order to gain practical experience there. I decided to do as much as I could on my own productions. So I ended up writing my own stories, doing my own camerawork, directing, and editing, rather than ask people who would not let me do theirs for them. Well, it worked quite well until I got to do the last projects, for which I got friends of mine.
The film school was definitely a great opportunity for me because we had no theoretical exams. Our papers were actual films and we could, therefore, experiment on each film we made after every seminar or workshop. Some cinemas in Berlin provided us with free tickets and it was possible for us to watch as many different films as we had time for. I could choose my own subjects, my own format, and the people I would work with. In a way, it was a freeing experience.
You stated that your basic problem was "to get the Europeans to co-operate with 'an ignorant black woman'." Could you elaborate on this?
At university, my colleagues were shocked by the fact that I could score the top marks at various subjects, including Latin and English. They did not expect this, and I guess they had no idea that I came from a very competitive school environment in Kenya and I had always done well in school! At the film school, the same attitude repeated itself: I was sort of "invisible" and not to be taken seriously. It meant being isolated from the working groups the students set up and which forced me to resort to plan B: ignore them too and go ahead and do what I set out to do. I guess that I am not an isolated case, because there is a general attitude that we are backward and we survive on donations from them. Well, African governments have not done much to correct this misconception of Africans, especially women. They are more concerned in getting donor aid and misappropriating them even. Of course, the reports on American/European TVs on Africa are usually negative: Hunger, epidemics, AIDS, street children, war, and corruption are what make news, not the people who lead normal lives in poor or posh or middle-class homes, whose children go to school or help their parents to survive. Not the efforts of ordinary citizens and their bravery in countering even catastrophes.
What are some of the productions that you did while in film school?
My school productions include: a short documentary on the daily life of a female African student in Berlin; the work of a traditional African musician teaching traditional music in Berlin and Germany, a visualized poem of my own; an essay on Africans in Berlin; and, finally, the full-length feature, The Battle of the Sacred Tree, which brought me back to my home village as a location! The Battle of the Sacred Tree was my rather ambitious graduation project, for which I had to raise more money than I actually could. But at last, a very low-budget film was completed and I was on my way out of the sheltered and spoiled life of a student!
In Germany, I had also written and directed two short dramas, thirty minutes each, for ZDF German Television. These were stories for a multi-cultural project which were made by a multi-cultural team about Berlin's mixture of "tribes": Turks, Germans, Africans, South-Americans, Poles, Czechs, and whoever else was a professional in the fields of writing and directing. Well, mine were dramas around African-German connections. One is witty, but the other one concerns a neo-nazi attack on an African man who has an eight-year-old daughter by his German wife. The little girl, through whose eyes we see, is suddenly thrown into an identity crisis: Am I not German? Where do I really belong?
Could you talk about the production of the film, Battle of the Sacred Tree?
Shooting in Kenya was something of an adventure: the conditions are as different as day and night. I could get no one to volunteer to work for me. They all figured it is just like any other foreign-financed film with a lot of money to distribute. But the actual atmosphere was more friendly, more humorous, and less stressing than shooting in Germany. I would get really upset and some actor would tell me, "Don't worry, it's only a movie!"
Had you ever studied at any Kenyan film institutions?
No, I have not studied at any Kenyan film institution, but I was a resource person at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communications at a three-week production seminar. During the first week, the participants developed two ideas into a five to ten minute script which they then shot and edited in two crews. One of the films was good, the other one a mess. It was my first experience at a Kenyan film institution which trains people on technical aspects of film. Most of the video/filmmakers in Kenya have gone through this institution.
Could you talk about some of your film projects since returning to Kenya?
Well, I have been based in Nairobi since 1995. In 1996/97, I made two short films for a German TV series "The Rights of Children". In Nairobi, I wrote and directed a film based on the right to attend school plus the right to know both parents. The leading character, Koi, cannot go to school because her mother is only a street hawker and is also single. Koi, inspired by "The Ghost of Children's Rights," tracks down her father and literally blackmails him into paying her school fees. So she kills two birds with one stone. The twelve-minute story is a comedy of sorts.
The second film was shot in Kigali and is based on traumatized children. Gatashya, a ten-year-old boy, lost his whole family in the genocide but survived somehow. He meets another orphan boy in the city who introduces him to his orphanage. The personnel at the orphanage try to help him to work out his trauma and get over it. These two films were shot on Beta and broadcast on ZDF in German-speaking countries. The series has won the "Erich Kästner" award in Germany.
Could you elaborate some on the genocide that you focus on in the film?
During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Tutsis were killed by the hundreds of thousands. Hutu sympathizers were also killed. The genocide did not spare neighbors or close relatives who had got mixed up in the ethnic division. Hundreds of children were orphaned. No one in Rwanda was spared, because many are still traumatized. The survivors all lost many of their kin and friends. A trauma psychologist who works with children told me stories about children watching their fathers and mothers getting chopped up. It is unimaginable! After doing some research, I decided to do the short film on this subject— which is actually too hard for children, but it happened to children! I found it difficult to make a film (it was for German TV) which is palatable to children who have not gone through this. But even then, it is still terrible.
You have many projects in process at varying stages. Could you talk about them?
In 1997, I wrote the screenplay, "Sweet Sixteen" for a full-length feature film which is now in the fund-raising stage for production. Sweet Sixteen dramatizes the fate of a sixteen-year-old girl who gets herself pregnant. In Kenya, it is the end of the road for many a teenage girl: at least 10,000 a year lose their places in school while some lose their homes. (It is not a depressing story! It is about dealing with an extreme situation and beginning to rise again).
In November 1997, I started shooting African Children which favors the girl-child and which is now in the editing stage. It is a documentary on African teenage girls. The film seeks to give a differentiated image of how others see Africa and its people. The general image that goes through the media is Africa's helplessness, poverty, chaos, war, catastrophes, etc. It is certainly far from being about "typical" African catastrophes, as it concentrates on the daily lives, beliefs, dreams, and expressions of these girls. Very few reports show normal girls going to school, eating, laughing, being cheeky like any other teenagers, leading a normal life. This film is educational in terms of informing people out there that Africans are just people despite the setbacks. And people are people. This film is about strong schoolgirls who lead very normal lives, according to themselves. It is told by themselves and not by a commentator. The girls give their own stories the way they will, they share their daily life with the audience. They are ambitious and strong and they are very hard working.
Since 1998, I have been writing a thirty-minute script for Zimmedia's "Mama Africa Series," a project by six African women directors; we attended a writer's workshop in January (1999) in Zimbabwe. My plans are to finish the doc. editing and concentrate on the script. In between, I've been to many different festivals with The Battle of the Sacred Tree including one of my dream festivals, Creteil/Paris in April 1998, where it had a "gala evening" which was fantastic.
What actually drives me is the need to give Africans images they can say are truly themselves and not what Hollywood gives them. I would like to hear, as I heard from many Kenyans after they saw The Battle of the Sacred Tree, "that is just the way us women in groups behave." We have to learn to enjoy our own stories, which portray our joys, follies, vices, and virtues and to go on to say, "We are alright! We can do it, we can be proud of our people." In short, it is a quest of identity. Many Africans think that the more foreign they look and behave, the more acceptance they will get. But they forget that there is strength in just accepting their own past, present, and future as their own, and therefore as the source of their own survival.
Could you elaborate on the International Women's Film Festival at Creteil (France). At the 1998 festival there was a focus on African women. What were your experiences?
The focus on African women at Creteil was a good thing because we don't realize how many women are busy shooting in Africa, and on how many formats, and on what variety of subjects! Certainly, Creteil revealed that women in Africa are certainly working on their own image and struggling to get things done, and getting them done! It gave us African women a chance to air our views, show what we are doing, show how diverse we are and in how many colors we come (four of us were white). And, my own film had the honor of "opening the focus on African women" and that felt great. I felt I was treated, to my own surprise, like a star! Well, I had no objection at all!
One of your short films focused on African-German relations. Could you talk about your experiences as a Black person in Germany in light of the racial tensions that exist there? There is an active group of Afro-Germans, some of whom I met during their visit to Washington, D.C. here at Howard University. I have also read the book Showing Our Colours. Have you had any experiences with this group?
Yes, I knew and worked with some of the Afro-Germans in Berlin. I met the late May Opitz at an Audre Lorde poetry workshop. Audre Lorde encouraged the Afro-Germans to write the book Showing Our Colours and I remember it coming out. I was very saddened by the death of the talented, beautiful, and resourceful May Opitz.
The Afro-Germans, mostly raised by white mothers, have had a very depressing past. In fact, their past is distorted by the fact that many of their black fathers never seemed to care for their existence and their white mothers could hardly cope with their lot: society rejected them on account of their black children. One way or the other, few seemed happy to me. It dawned on me that I was very lucky to have had a healthy childhood in Kenya, one in which my identity and purpose seemed clear!
Once, the Afro-Germans invited me to show my film, A Lover and Killer of Colour and we traveled together to the venue, Duesseldorf. During a discussion about their parents in the van, I was thrown off-balance by the accusation by one of them: "Do your men have to scatter their sperms everywhere?" I was struck dumb, and I thought later that this should actually be discussed with our African men. In Kenya, we ladies complain about them too: many just dump us as soon as we admit we are pregnant! And sixty percent of Kenyan mothers are single! Over to you, African men!
Nathalie, another friend of mine from the group, has been collecting images of black people on advertisements and she talked about it in my film, Black in the Western World. She noted that they are negatively portrayed, too, although this is not obvious at first glance. Others in the film are Mahoma from Malawi, who was hurt during a racist attack; Felix from Namibia, who was also bashed up on some occasion; and Tsitsi Dangarembga from Zimbabwe, who was at that time busy trying to understand life as a black woman in Germany. This film has been shown at community centers in Germany where Germans would get very upset about Africans summarizing their points of view. They would be angry with me! Well, that is their own point of view. But I'm glad I don't do—or feel it is my duty to make—such films anymore. A Lover and Killer of Colour won me an interesting comment from a TV editor in 1989 at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival: "It is just like South Africa, uncompromising." And I replied: "Well, South Africa is not free yet!"
The Battle of the Sacred Tree, in its proposal stage, won me the critique: "This is not an African film! Anybody can see that the writer is completely westernized!" That one I could not respond to! It was too "civilized," too modern, too green and lush (location in Kenya), too un-village oriented," that I was declared non-African! Well, this is the film I enjoyed doing most: I was telling a story like any other, albeit on African culture. It is about a group of Christian women who want to be rid of the "primitive, savage and hateful past" by getting the old, sacred tree chopped down. They cannot mobilize people to do it, so they decide to do it themselves; but before they strike it on a moonlit night, they are attacked by God's own creatures, the biting safari ants which live and thrive under the tree. At Mill Valley, they called it "a hilarious comedy of errors" and, apparently, audiences enjoy it very much. It is my pleasure.
You studied and worked in film in Germany and now you are back in Kenya working as a filmmaker. Could you compare your overall experiences in film within a German context and in Kenya, within a Kenyan milieu?
In Germany, there are enough professionals to choose from if you are directing a film. Things are sometimes more organized (depending on the funding, the production conditions, etc.) But in Kenya, one has to rely on a small group of people, most of whom have had no professional training or exposure, especially as heads of their departments, like costume design, properties, film music, scriptwriting, directing, sound, etc. This is one of the areas people need further training in, so that when a film project comes up, you are confident with the crew and you don't end up worrying about details in every department yourself. There have been people who have worked on Hollywood films shot here, but they are employed as runners and third assistants. This means that we have a vicious circle: for chief positions, one might have to resort to a foreign crew! It makes the logistics more complicated and extra funding necessary! But all the same, it is much easier to work with Kenyans because they are friendly, open, humorous, and easy to get along with. Shooting in Kenya is full of pitfalls, but it is more pleasant in the long run.
In the German context, I had a problem of identification: I was asked by a co-student why I made all my films on black people. I asked, why shouldn't I? Of course, it is because I was a foreigner and we shared not only problems of non-acceptance, but a common heritage. And also, if I don't, who is going to do it? The only problem with this is that one ends up in a ghetto—people want to keep you in it. I was getting sucked up in a spiral of having to deal with racism in everything I do—radio programs on black people in Germany, lectures on racism in film, teaching children about Africa, writing poems on my surroundings, etc.
In Kenya, my mind is free to roam into whichever subject it fancies. Nobody asks me everyday, as a matter of course, where I come from and whether I intend to stay in Germany or go back to pest-ridden Africa. The everyday stress is gone. I don't even talk about racism anymore, but about our government, our views on it, etc. And I find people just that much more alive here.
Are you looking to start your own production company?
Though I do not have my own production company so far, I plan to as soon as I can get some capital together to start one. Also, I prefer to be on the artistic, rather than the organizing side! So for now, I am still consolidating my position before I make that jump.
What do you see as your role as a filmmaker?
As a filmmaker, I see my role as a cultural worker. Historical distortions have made Africans lose confidence in themselves. We tend to ignore our past and rush headlong into things American and Western European. A white person commands more respect for us than one of us black people. The whole problem lies in the brainwashing that took place during and after colonialism. In Kenya, for example, African music, religions, and cultural life were prohibited during colonial days. The Christian missionaries convinced us of "the evil which evidently was inherent in our past and present." The promise of going to paradise pertained only to those who abandoned their "primitive" gods and embraced Christianity. Today, everywhere we look, we see terrible symptoms of our injected inferiority complex. A white person gets away with anything in Kenya.
A person who has been to America is a "been-to," as Ama Ata Aidoo, the poetess from Ghana, terms them. In every film I do, I try to correct the negative image we have of ourselves by trying to portray Africans from the human side. Of course, human beings err and are never perfect, but there are also positive sides to us which never surface in films made by outsiders. These I try to include in my films. And if I portray a character as basically negative, it is because we also have such characters, which exist everywhere. It is a quest to question, to probe, to rediscover qualities using cinema as a tool.
Could you talk about African cinema?
African Cinema depends on the maker and his/her location. Francophone films tend to be more anthropological in their approach—Africa revisited like a museum. This is alright, as our past needs reconstructing. But sometimes I get impatient and wish I knew more about the present life and the present struggles. I don't exactly like museums because they show stagnant lives. I like films which connect more to us today or at least depict how things have changed and why. Anglophone films tend to be more development-oriented—again, this is restricting us to a world populated with suffering Africans. Where are the films which embrace the whole character of Africans? Where are the films which can make us laugh, which appeal to our emotions and which show us who we are? I feel the same as a filmmaker (I forget who it is) who said that the greatest appreciative comment for him would be "that one is behaving just like my neighbor next door." In short, African Cinema should also produce films which not only portray life as it is, but have characters whose world is accessible to us today. I mean, villages are nice romantic places, but there are cities in Africa too. There are the high and mighty who can be subjects of satirical critique. There are career women and brilliant children. There are normal issues of life.
Could you talk about what is going on in Kenyan cinema? With women in Kenyan cinema?
There have been a few productions in the past few years. Anne Mungai made Saikati in 1993, then I made The Battle of the Sacred Tree in 1995, Albert Wandago made Metamo in 1996, now Anne has launched Saikati 2. Dommie O. Yambo is planning Forbidden and I am planning Sweet Sixteen. It is not very easy to get a film going here, it depends on one's connections. There is no supportive government policy to make our progress easier. There is one in Burkina Faso, which is a much poorer country than ours! Of the above, there are three women and one man. There are other women in the "industry" and they seem more tenacious than the men!
Would you say that a woman's sensibility exists? How would you describe/define it?
A woman's sensibility? Oh yes, definitely. We just have to go into the African literature of this century. African women have not written much, but most of their work has a positive approach. When describing corruption and government, they can be more humorous and more human: they don't read like a grinding thing which drags the reader down. An example is Faty Sow Fall's The Beggars' Strike which makes us laugh, but, of course, is a caustic critique of the political hypocrisy which is crippling the continent. Women, I think, are closer to the heart and are more sensitive to emotional lives. A man can be quite dry in the same subject.
What importance do you see in African women taking part in film criticism?
African women should take part in film criticism because they can correct images of themselves and even of their surroundings. Their point of view is important, seeing that they comprise at least half the population of the continent; and also, they can also tell us how they really see men, either as a suppressing group, as husbands, as fathers, as rulers, etc., and be able to pinpoint some discrepancies evident in the way they apparently "are" or how they "think".
Discourse on images of black women in the cinema is emerging as an important category in African film criticism. What are your views?
Black women are very strong people in general, from Africa to the Diaspora. They uphold the societies they live in. They are the ones who struggle against all odds to feed their children. If we look at how they have been portrayed, we notice that there is a big difference in, for example, white films where they are whores (Mona Lisa) or big, nice, caring, and subservient Nannies (Hollywood), or creatures in deep trouble (films commissioned by development NGOs), or mythical creatures in some African films. The reality of the strong African woman still needs more emphasis, especially in today's world—where she's fighting a battle of liberation from both traditional and "Victorian" laws which keep her down.
Strong images would give her more confidence to stop believing that she needs to be like this or like that, depending on societal beliefs and notions. I like her image when she is shown to be of an independent mind, when she is not a passive being who is too busy following false tracks laid down for her by others who are more interested in "keeping her in her place." One should give her the opportunity to define where her place is! And cinema, because it allows us to travel in a projected world of the possible, not necessarily the present reality, is a great opportunity!
