An improbable duo, a British actor turned charity founder and a Kenyan art director, came together and shot a movie on HIV/AIDS. The result was Ndoto za Elibidi (The dreams of the Elibidis) which was presented at the Zanzibar Film Festival last summer, winning the award assigned by the Italian Cinema Africano di Verona. Nick Reding is an actor from the UK with a long background in film television and theatre. In 2002 he founded Sponsored Arts For Education (S.A.F.E.), a charity working with slum dwellers in Nairobi and other locations in Kenya. SAFE works with young Kenyan artists, producing theatre and films, to challenge stigma and discrimination with a message of compassion solidarity and hope. Kamau Wa Ndung’u grew up in Mathare slum in Nairobi. He has worked as an actor and director in theatre for many years. Kamau has been the creative director for SAFE for the last five years. Ndoto za Elibidi is their first film. The story was devised originally as a stage play with actors from the Nairobi slums. The plot pivots around the theme of acceptance and love as the protagonists – parents, four daughters and their lovers – come to terms with HIV and ghetto life. Cutting back and forth from fiction to documentary, from the original stage play to actual locations, the film takes viewers on two parallel journeys: we watch the story, but we are also watching it through the eyes of the ghetto audience. Southworld has met the two film directors in Verona, where they presented their film at the local Festival of African cinema.
“This movie comes from a theatrical opera, says Kamau, after we performed the play in slums, schools or near a health centre, many asked us to have a DVD, they wanted to watch it again and again. We thought to shoot the theatrical performance and put it on a DVD. Then we thought, why not shooting it in a better way. This is how we developed the idea of this movie”. “The cast of the original play was chosen through an open audition in Nairobi, adds Nick. We wanted to look at a series of issues facing the people in the slum. The play was devised over a six months period and has been performed for over five years in the slums. I think there is quite a lot of information in the movie that usually Europeans are not clear with. Actually, many young people in Europe are confused. They believe that drugs are available and there is a cure. Also the treatment of rape victims, another underlying theme in the movie, is important. So there is information there, and Europeans should not get too complacent and believe they know it all”.
