Jonathan Kariuki, 24, an ambitious auteur of average height clutches his Canon 6D, his backpack safely hanging on his shoulders, squints on the viewfinder and screams ‘Action’. The light skinned miniskirted femme rumbles into a Kikuyu rant with her index finger poking on the face of a shabby looking man with a chunk of belly fat that spills out of his trousers and who stands unresponsive and then… the man gives the woman a hard slap, she tumbles on the ground, yowling curses…welcome to River Road, the boulevard of affordable Kenyan films.
Here in this garish frontier, films are produced on affordable gadgets – bought or rented – and repetitive stock characters are played by actors, who, in just a few short years, can claim to have over 300 films in their showreels.
In the 1950s, the ‘who’s who’ in Kenyan politics used to wine and dine in these streets. Well- known politicians and influential business men say that this dusty, urine-reeking strip of bars and restaurants used to be ‘the place to be’ if you wanted to see the best of Nairobi.
That was then, now nothing much has changed in these mean streets, if you visit River Road at night this is what you will see; prostitutes lined up soliciting what are known as ‘shorts’ – quickies. You will see a whole lot of bars full of young men and women nursing beers and chatting with friends, you will see plain clothes cops harassing idle men on these streets and hawkers vending their goods. Then you will hear underground music from clubs lined up on this thoroughfare with the DJ barking in Swahili ‘Kama imekubamba wapi nduru wewe’ – ‘if you’re feeling this, scream out loud…’
When the sun’s yellow sheen gleams the next morning, and its rays beat on vintage walls of these long-established buildings, the noise level doesn’t drop much but now its source and purpose are quite different. From seven o’clock in the morning you will hear screeches of loud music from speakers hanging in open electronic shops and young girls beckoning you to buy a speaker, a microphone, an ‘original phone’ or a guitar. It is no wonder that the creatives of Nairobi come to this bustling and chaotic district for inspiration and an outlet.
Thousands of people flock to this part of Nairobi city to buy film and music DVDs, because here, you will get whatever you want; newly released films and documentaries, all types of music at a very affordable rate. In these streets upcoming filmmakers like Jonathan can spark out an idea, do a casting call, shoot the film and publish it on DVD and voila! There’s a ready market right there.
“I have done a couple of films in my language –Kikuyu,” Jonathan says. “Every time I release a film, I have had it sold out; I first printed 500 DVDs and I would sell all of them.” Jonathan handles his distribution and he has a team of ‘investigators’ who look around for any shops that sell his material unsolicited.
“One has to be creative in all angles,” Jonathan explains. “In this age of digital production, you can maximise on your potential and your creativity and profits by handling everything in one office.”
Since 2006 the Kenya Film Classification Board has championed for a 60/40 viewership package for content distributors and media outlets in the country. This would mean that 60 percent of airtime on Kenyan television channels would be set aside for local content, with the remaining 40 percent open for imported content.
“I think this is a great initiative,” says Joshua Okoth, a 35-year-old film producer. “We are headed in the right direction and I am happy that our children will watch and local content and apart from that, content creators like me will have a field day because we have a great number of platforms to choose from when we want to distribute our content.”
The rise of digital film production has made it easier and affordable for content creators such as Jonathan, to tell ethnic-based stories that are aimed at a specific viewership.
“River Road enables me to target specific types of viewership,” he explains. “If I want to do a story on gangsters or thieves, I can do it from a specific ethnic group, a point of view that has a ready market, I won’t be fumbling in the dark trying to guess whether the viewers will like my story or not because when I was originally writing the screenplay I had a target viewership in mind.”
What about the quality?
“I try and offer quality, I am a trained filmmaker with a journalistic background; I know a good film, a bad film and a great film. Right now I am doing good films, but I am going to do great films in the future – it’s only a matter of time.”
Recently the River Road Film Festival concluded with dozens of TV actors and actresses recognised for their artistic talents both on television and film.
“It was a great honor to be a part of this,” actor Jacky Wambui beams. “Regardless of how River Road is viewed across the nation, this recognition and award makes me feel like I am doing the right thing and headed along the right path in my career.”
River Road’s path to providing a platform for filmmakers is still a work in progress but weighs heavily on the film culture that is picking up steam in the Kenyan arts.
Jonathan adds: “We are running on over a 60 million dollar turnover base; what makes you think River Road is not a force to be reckoned with?”
