Life & Work

Using film to drive social change

nisisi

The group Ni sisi performing ‘hands in air song’. Courtesy

What started as a street theatre production performed in an open area was transformed last week into a feature film entitled Ni Sisi (It is us).

The 93-minute production by SAFE, a local NGO, premiered last Thursday at the Australian High Commission and hit cinemas the day after.

Deliberately timed to precede the General Election on Monday, Ni Sisi explores identity, peace and forgiveness through a typical Kenyan community which co-exists amiably until rumours and mistrust begin to circulate, shattering the society’s harmonious lives.

“Friends who have lived and worked together all their lives, who used to place no stock in their neighbour’s tribe, start identifying others by tribe rather than by their identity as a person,” reads the promotional pamphlet on the film.

Produced with a budget of just under Sh8 million, the film is in Kiswahili and Sheng with English sub-titles, and uses humour to communicate a serious message.

One of the first entertaining scenes in Ni Sisi is a game of scrabble between the three maternal figures in the film, where words from local dialects are surreptitiously slipped onto the board by the players to earn high scores.

Nick Reding, British actor, founder and executive director of SAFE and script writer for Ni Sisi, first began using humour to garner audience attention for a solemn topic when SAFE performed plays on HIV/ Aids and safe sex practices.

The weighty national issues that Ni Sisi explores begin with the arrival of Roxana in a representative Kenyan village. The first half of the film sets the scene of jovial life and includes a happy romance between two of the characters.

However, the introduction of tribal affiliation creates mistrust in the community, which grows into a sense of threat and the escalation of fear. It is a narrative that the country vividly experienced during the post-election violence of 2007/08.

The initial plot and script for Ni Sisi was developed by SAFE in 2011 as a 2-hour outdoor theatre production, which was enacted to local communities by SAFE’s companies in Mombasa (SAFE Pwani), Nairobi and Rift Valley (SAFE Ghetto).

Ni Sisi built on the NGO’s 15-year use of performing arts and community programmes to educate, inspire and deliver social change.

The powerful element of personal identification as captured in the name of the play, Ni Sisi, was intended to communicate the pivotal role that an individual can play in inciting or discouraging violence in a community setting.

"It is us who fought, it us who killed, it is us who spread rumours. But it is also us who can change things, it is us who have the power to challenge bad leadership, it is us who create our community" reads the promotional pamphlet for the film.

All 15 actors in Ni Sisi are members of SAFE, and the lead actor, Jabali (Joseph Wairimu) is also the lead in award-winning Kenyan film NairobiHalf Life.

Godfrey Ojiambo who plays Tall in the film, a character who works in the village shop and falls in love with the female lead Roxana (Jacky Vike) is also a career actor with over 13 years of experience. Other films he has worked on include international productions In a Better World, Lost in Africa, The Constant Gardner and Nairobi Half Life.

The making of Ni Sisi was an experience which was fraught with emotions, says Godfrey, who doubled up as production assistant, because he experienced the violence first hand.

The 32-year-old father of two explained how, at the time, he was living in Kibera, and saw his friends being chased and killed. He had to hide his wife at another location because she belonged to the Kikuyu tribe that was being attacked.

It was an experience he had never discussed with anyone, and through his acting, he experienced a sense of relief for being able to finally share the story and let go. Many other actors in Ni Sisi also experienced the 2007/08 violence.

Krysteen Savane, 31, project manager with SAFE Ghetto and the actress who plays Zuena in the film, the politician’s wife who is behind the malice and division of the village along tribal lines, explained that involving community members in the play was a deliberate decision as it helped garner support from the local communities who could identify with the actors.