The NBO Film Fest (Nairobi Film Festival) is back for its third year. It will be happening from 6th June 2019 to 16th June 2019 at Prestige Plaza, Ngong Road, Nairobi, Kenya. The Festival will feature films from Kenyan, African, Afro-Latin and Afro-Caribbean cinema.
Co-founded by film director Mbithi Masya and producer Sheba Hirst, The NBO Film Fest wants to revitalize cinema-going culture in Nairobi as a critical means of contributing to the growth of a healthy film industry in Kenya. The festival began to do that in the last three years by presenting exceptional films from around the world that are rarely presented in Nairobi’s mainstream cinema and showing the best made Kenyan films in a lively festival format.
Lusala, a film directed by Mugambi Nthiga, produced by One Fine Day Films and Ginger Ink Films will make its world premiere at the festival. This will be continuing a tradition that started in the 2017 premiere of Kati Kati by Mbithi Masya and was followed by the 2018 premiere Supa Modo by Likarion Wainaina.
This year, the schedule will include:
1. Lusala, directed by Mugambi Nthiga
2. Adama, directed by Simon Rouby
3. Cook-Off, directed by Tomas Brickhill
4. Subira, directed by Sippy Chadha
5. The City Of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund
6. Keteke, directed by Peter Sedufia
7. Miriam Miente, directed by Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada
8. Talking About Trees, directed by Suhaib Gasmelbari
9. Yuli, directed by Icíar Bollaín
10. The Tokoloshe, directed by Jerome Pikwane
11. Sew The Winter To My Skin, directed by Dom Pedro
12. Liyana, directed by Aaron Kopp and Amanda Kopp
13. Akasha, directed by Hajooj Kuka
14. Mercy of the Jungle, director Joël Karekezi
15. The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste Garcia, directed by Arturo Infante
16. Five Fingers for Marseilles, directed by Michael Matthews
17. The Burial of Kojo, directed by Blitz “The Ambassador” Bazawule
The festival will also include:
18. A Selection Of Short Films curated by NBO Film Fest
19. Shorts, Shorts and Shots, a selection of short films curated by Docubox
NBO Film Festival believes that cinema is one of the most critical ways that modern societies examine who they are and interrogate who they would collectively like to be. The team is committed to the notion that films are best experienced with an audience – where you experience your own emotions as you watch the films but are also conscious of the reactions of those around you. The festival is also dedicated to the presentation of films in a manner that loyally honors the creative intentions of the filmmaker – sonically and visually by presenting the films using the best screening facilities in the city.
NBO Film Festival’s events and screenings are a strong debunking of the myth that Kenyan audience is not interested in consuming Kenyan content. They are simply starved of good examples of it. The audience numbers multiplied by five between the 2017 and 2018 festivals – a true indicator that there is a well-established appetite for films that go well beyond what mainstream distribution currently has to offer.
With that in mind, NBO aims to bring the best of the cinema world to Nairobi; at the inaugural festival, the focus was entirely on films made in Kenya to remind ourselves that we are part of the global cinema conversation; in 2018 the focus was on the best of contemporary African cinema. While continuing dedication to these two programmatic areas, the festival is expanding to include the Afro-Latin and Afro-Caribbean Cinema and films from their related diasporas.
Tickets are available here.
