Nairobi Half Life Selected by the American Film Institute for Festival

Nairobi Half Life has been selected by the American Film Institute to screen at their upcoming film festival.

NHL was selected as one of only six Breakthrough selections, meaning it was fairly unknown and it impressed the committee only after viewing it.

The AFI Fest will also serve as NHL‘s North American premiere and will share the festival with Oscar frontrunners like Armour, Kon-Tiki, Beyond the Hills and Pieta.

Whereas films like The Angels’ Share and Like Someone In Love make it through because their high profile directors (Ken Loach and Abbas Kiarostami), Tosh being a first-time director might have just gotten his big break.

The Academy Awards entrants were announced last week but AFI is where the Oscar race really begins for the Foreign Language films. Whereas the AFI committee will watch every film that was submitted, the Academy members are only likely to watch films that already have buzz or big-name directors. AFI Fest is where NHL might get that.