Several films were screened at the NBO Film Festival 2019 at the Prestige Plaza, Ngong Road on the weekend of June 8 – 9, 2019.
After a colourful opening night and Friday of short films with “Shorts, Shorts and Shots” the movies could start flowing. Nairobi residents were treated to several films over the weekend from the continent and further afield. These included the Simon Rouby directed Adama a coming-of-age story about a young man in West Africa who goes in search of his brother against his elder’s wishes.
Then there was “Zimbabwe’s first post-Mugabe feature film” Tomas Brickhill’s Cook Off about a single mother whose life is turned upside down when her son enters her into a reality TV cooking competition. The director Tomas Brickhill spoke about how it started as an actual TV show called Battle of the Chefs then spun off into a feature film, the production challenges, how it was received in Zimbabwe among other gems. Watch him speaking about it below.
Also on the silver screen was Sippy Chadha’s Subira which follows a free-spirited young girl from Lamu who struggles to live out her dream of swimming in the ocean, against local customs and an arranged upper- class marriage in Nairobi. It won Best Feature Film, Best Lead Actress, Best Editor, Best Lighting Technician, and Best Director at the Kalasha Awards 2018 even before been released for general screening last year. After screening, there was a session with cast and crew of the movie speaking about their involvement. Here they are speaking below.
Filmgoers also got to watch Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund’s City of God, Peter Sedufia’s Keteke, Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada’s Miriam Miente (Miriam Lies), Suhaib Gasmelbari’s Talking About Trees, and Iciar Bollian’s Yuli which can be described as the Cuban Billy Elliot. Below are trailers to the movies that were watched over the weekend that are available on YouTube.
The show continues at the Prestige Plaza.