CC image courtesy of Ktownafrica
Kenya’s movie industry is not taking off as expected in part due to the lack of trust between producers and actors, a situation leading to both parties working independently and affecting the quality of production.
This is according to John Karanja, chief executive officer (CEO) of Riverwood, a company registered by the Kenyan government to undertake its film promotions, productions and marketing initiatives, who was speaking at a scriptwriting session at the Broadcast, Film and Music Africa conference in Nairobi.
“A lot of producers and actors would rather work alone rather than work together on a story that will tell about Kenya because we are suspicious of each other,” said Karanja.
The session, the theme of which was “finding the authentic African story”, brought together scriptwriters, actors and producers, with participants also attributing failure in the industry to budgetary constraints which have affected productions.
Lack of audiences for the various productions was also named as a reason, but Dr Margaretta wa Gacheru said theatre houses which have quality productions have full houses whenever a production is on stage.
The end of the session saw heated discussions about whether Nollywood actors should be brought in to act Kenyan movies and the lack of content in Kenyan productions, with all participants in agreement it is time Kenyan stories were told rather than just producing work from abroad.
