Is Nairobi Half Life Not Kenyan Enough for the Oscars? The Actors Address the Critics

Nairobi Half Life is one film that has made Kenyans proud. But some have said that the fact that it was funded by Germans with facilitators from outside the country, maybe it should not be considered as a Kenyan effort.

And so we asked two members of the Nairobi Half Life cast to respond to Nathan Collett, a local film director, on his claims that NHL will miss out on the Oscar because of an Academy Award rule that says the film’s creative talent should have come from the country of production.

The question came after Joseph K. Wairimu mentioned that his first film was Kibera Kid, which was coincidentally (or is it ironically) directed by Collett himself.

Ghafla!: “The Kibera Kid director, is that Nathan Collett?”

Joseph K. Wairimu: “Yes.”

G!: “He was one of the guys who were saying that Nairobi Half Life is probably not Kenyan enough and it might fail getting into the Oscars because of that. Now, you were on set while it was being made. The rule he was trying to argue on was the creative must have predominantly come from the country the film was made. You guys working on it, were the creative people mostly Kenyan?”

Olwenya Maina: “Everybody is entitled to their opinion but I think he’s not factual, he’s not that for sure because the script itself, how was it European? How is it Western? First of all, we can’t say acting is our thing. So, generally, there are no Africans who’ve written more books about acting. They’re European, in fact not even American. [Nairobi Half Life] from every department, the people who dominated were Africans but the mentors were from outside.”

G!: “The writing department was all Kenyan. Three Kenyans–and unlike other departments–the supervisor was also Kenyan. The entire writing team was Kenyan, not even the facilitator was from outside the country.”

Joseph K. Wairimu: “And also another thing, he should also be reminded that before he came and produced and directed Kibera Kid, he was acting on an apprentice kind of umbrella. And from that, he was the one who was directing it, and he should give credit where it deserves where Film Africa is giving us that platform to go and share our stories. And all this experts were just shadows behind the people who were actually doing it. On set, we were with Tosh Gitonga, he was the one who was calling the shots. He shouldn’t forget that it was a training workshop.”

G!: “I think he was mostly talking because of Tom Tykwer because he was the supervising director.”

OM: “Why are we discussing him as if his opinion is the only one that counts?”

G!: “I want you to make it clear that this was totally Kenyan.”

OM: “It is totally Kenyan because were even given the freedom to change what we feel. Even Tosh would tell him, ‘no, I can’t do that.’ For instance, we got a stuntman to teach us how to die, how we should fall, how we should run and such things. Being shot in the head and then you kneel down and then fall on your back. It was so plastic, that old-school way off acting an action film. So we had that freedom as actors to say ‘no, I can’t do that, I can do this, this line I have to change it.'”

This interview was conducted last week. Yesterday, the Academy Awards Committee confirmed Nairobi Half Life as the first Kenyan official entry for Oscars.