Slum Film Festival August 2012 Edition Preparations Kicks off

The Slum Film Festival (SFF) is an innovative community-based film event, featuring stories from, by, and about people living in urban slums everywhere. The first showcase, celebrated in August 2011, paid special attention to the images of slums around Nairobi. This year, this new edition will focus on movies made by and about the slums in East Africa. In only one year, the SFF has solidly grown and has defined itself internationally as an inspiring platform for the promotion of young artists from the slums.

The second edition of the SFF in Nairobi will take place in Kibera and Mathare slums, from 6th to 13th August 2012. This event does not want to legitimise the existence of these informal human settlements, but to raise more public attention while changing people’s perspectives towards these spaces and the people who live in them.

The 2nd SFF’s mission, achievements and programme of main activities will be presented, together with the new SFF poster and web-blog.

Visit the blog Slum Film Festival for more information.

  

KIDS ARE KINGS

The project commissioned by Gail Pickering, an artist based in London, relates to an archive of material related to a community television project which operated briefly in France in the mid-1970s. This was based in a new town which housed predominantly  working class community of Algerians, Morrocans and French residents.

Camera photo of the kids and kings film in exhibition.

Slum TV parallels this post-68 social model, a mirror in many ways of its core philosophy. Slum TV presented a film for exhibition, a sort of rearticulation of the archival material. Co-directed by Idah Opollo and Esther Waweru, the project is a deep concept close to Slum TV and Slum TV was happy to take part in the same.

 

Pictures of the exhibition setup courtesy of Gail Pickering

Related links: The Whole World Is Watching-PDF
                    The Whole World Is Watching

WATER

Am begining to think that clean water is relative. every day as i walk to the organization where am based, i come across lots of people who are out looking for water. but my concern is how clean is this water. back in high school we would even drink water from basins used for bathing and no one got sick. closer home we buy water from vendors and we have absolutely no idea of where this water is from and we just use it. there are brocken pipes everywhere and when we open our taps what come out is some brownish water and all we do is let it settle and we use it.
some time back water guard was introduced in the market but some people said it was jik only the intensity reduced. this no one can tell also. But really when do say that water is clean ? those who boil are few, water containers are also not very clean, we consume the same not minding the source.
well clean water will to me remain being a personal initiative since we all have our own definition of clean. whichever way, enjoy the water you've got.

SWIMO ...... SWIMMING IN THE RIVER.

Every kid in Mathare has once in their life gone swimming in the River. this is so despite the fact that the River is considered very dirty. The water is not clean as residence along this bunk use it as a way of disposal. when we were kids we used to call it duf mpararo ..... i.e once you were out one would look like ash was smered on them.
This used to happen especially on weekends and school holidays. my parents would scream once i got back home since i was beyond recognition but this did not stop me. Here i would forget that boys or girls were around all that was in mind was to swim or rather play with the water.
Yes i would like to give my kids better, but is swimming in this river bad ? no one really told me of its consequences and till now i fancy the young ones who go there. should i still allow my own to go duf-mpararo, how fun is it ?

HEATHEN SHOOT