The latest installment in our on-going African Cinema Now series is subtitled Our Queer Lives and invites us to consider the aesthetics and framework by which queer African stories reach us.
Stories of Our Lives (62 mins) documents personal stories of lovers, fighters and rebels and the community histories that characterize the queer experience in Kenya.
+ Ìfé ( Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim, Nigeria, 2020) 38 min
The tenderness of Ife and Adaora’s fraught first date — turn three — is a beautiful reminder of the simplicity of falling in love. This short resonates deeply with many people who’ve experienced the quiet intimacy of opening up to another.
Curators’ statement:
We were taken by how the simplicity of the style was a tool through which the viewer is invited to empathize and become a part of the journeys shared. The starkness of the black and white draws your attention to the character and the internal world that continues to shape them and their decisions. Nest Collectives’ extensive oral research into the lives of queer Kenyans introduced five unique experiences.
Akojo Film Collective
This is a beautiful little film about love, about humanity, about one of the many facets of what it means to be African.
Zeba Blay, Blavity
With an artful and intimate touch, director Jim Chuchu beautifully gives voice to the lives of gay and lesbian Kenyans in this omnibus film, shot in black-and-white.
Craig Takeuchi, Georgia Straight
Community Partner
UBC Africa Awareness Initiative
Jim Chuchu
Kelly Gichohi, Paul Ogola, Tim Mutungi, Mugambi Nthiga, Rose Njenga,Janice Mugo
Kenya/Nigeria
2014
In Swahili and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
George Gachara, Steven Markovitz
Producer
Wangechi Ngugi
Screenwriter
Jim Chuchu, Njoki Ngumi
Cinematography
Dan Muchina, Jim Chuchu
Production Design
Sunny Dolat
Also Playing
All That's Left of You
Jordan's submission for the Academy Awards, All That's Left of You makes the most of its epic format to chronicle seven decades of Palestinian history while tracking the psychological impact of cycles of exile and oppression on three generations.
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
A harried mother (Academy Award nominee Rose Byrne) clings to an unhelpful therapist (Conan O’Brien) as she struggles to cope with her daughter's mysterious illness in Mary Bronstein’s darkly comedic psychological drama.
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
L'Étranger
Recreating 1940s Algeria in vivid, high contrast black and white cinematography, L'Etranger is erotic, enigmatic and brutal in equal measures, a masterful screen version of Albert Camus's insoluble classic of existential alienation.