Written by on Feb 16, 2010. Posted in On Location

Kibera Film School set up in Nairobi

Hot Sun Films and the Hot Sun Foundation in Nairobi in Kenya recently set up the Kibera Film School, training local students in filmmaking techniques over a period of six months in a bid to help them establish careers in Kenya’s media sector.

Nine students have been taken on in the first year from Kibera, which is Africa’s largest slum. Mercy Murugi, a producer at Hot Sun Films, said: “We advertised in the slum. Candidates did three short story ideas and were asked to produce references, before going before a panel for interview.”

The film school is the only one of its kind in an African slum and is designed to give the students a creative outlet to tell their stories. Kenyan media professionals have worked at the school and it is also intended to be an integral part of the ongoing reconciliatory process after the divisions highlighted by electoral violence in 2007 and 2008.

Charlotte Morantin, artistic and regional co-ordinator for Kenya at Belgian funding body Africalia, one of Hot Sun’s international supporters, said: “Their projects and productions generate a shift in the way residents from Kibera and other slums in Nairobi perceive themselves and their own situation.”