Watu Wote’ eyes an Oscar in a world full of hate and terror

A scene from Oscar-nominated Kenyan film 'Watu Wote'. ‘Watu Wote’ reminds Kenya of its role in humanising the world. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • Movie on Al-Shabaab attack on a bus in Mandera reminds Kenya of its responsibility in humanising the world, writes Kingwa Kamenchu

Watu Wote, the short film nominated for the 2018 Oscars, premiered in Nairobi on January 23, 2018 at the Junction Mall. A partnership between three students at Germany’s Hamburg Media School and Kenya’s LightBox Africa production house, it sparked all manner of discussion.

The movie is based on a true story: The events of December 21, 2015, where Al-Shabaab militants attacked a bus en route to Mandera from Nairobi.

This attack was not the first of its kind. Al-Shabaab militants had been on the rampage with up to 60 separate incidences between 2011 and 2014. They used grenades, bombings, gun killings, and suicide bombings, the most prominent being the attack at Westgate Mall on September 21, 2013. When it involved killings of the public, their modus operandi was to separate Christians and Muslims and kill the Christian passengers. Often, they would ask passengers to recite verses from the Holy Quran so as to make sure that Christians did not pretend to be Muslim.

In the events depicted in Watu Wote, the Muslim passengers, nevertheless, shielded their non-muslim counterparts, even at the threat of death. It was a heart rending and memorable story that made the news locally, and it was therefore unsurprising that the students from the Hamburg Media School would choose to base this as the subject for their short film.

Art plays many roles in society — from providing mindless entertainment, distraction, and aesthetic beauty, to giving an opportunity for a people to meditate on the state of their existence. For Kenya, the movie enables us to see how we have allowed ideologies such as religion and ethnicity and class to divide us as a people, but it also serves a role on the bigger world stage.

We grew up thinking that our country was the only messed up one, and everyone else (especially in the West) was perfect and the benchmark for civilisation. Indeed, in many informal discussions, you hear people cite incidents taking place in the USA or Europe, followed by a lamentation about how backward Kenya is by comparison. It is for the same reason that we have Kenyans working and living in these supposedly more privileged countries.

BELIED THE TRUTH

Recent years have, however, belied the truth of this. While once Africa and the global south were believed to be the hotbed of atrocities and dehumanisation, over the years, this practice has propped its head up — most unexpectedly — even in the global capitals of the world. The Western script states that terrorism reared its head up after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, with similar attacks having been seen in Paris, London, Brussels and Madrid, among other places. This perspective, however, fails to take into account the terrors and atrocities that the global North has itself continually unleashed in Africa and the Middle East, in mostly Muslim countries. What they have then told us is terror, has simply been the responses by a people under siege. One of the most unfortunate aspects that this war on terror has thus taken is the conflation of Islam and terror, something that we have bought into.

And this is where art comes in. It reminds us that the concrete binaries we try to create (Muslim – evil, Christian – good) are false and inauthentic. They are convenient and might be expedient in the short term but, overall, they skirt around the heart of the matter rather than plunging into it and dealing with it straight away. Watu Wote thus allows us to reflect on the state of our collective humanity.

In Kenya, we have failed to recognise that the only reason we have fallen victim to the terror attacks is because of our nation’s ‘friendship’ with the USA, which is regarded as the headquarters of evil by the millions that have suffered in the wars in Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan. We have taken it for granted that we can only be America’s lapdog, rather than imagining ourselves as being more than that, playing a larger role on the global sphere.

By art reminding us of the truths in our midst, it humanises us. It keeps us from continually making knee-jerk reactions based on momentary emotion, but instead allows us to reflect on how we got to where we are and what we need to do to move forward. Art doesn’t serve to reveal perfection or to show beautiful pictures as ends to themselves, it reflects what it does to draw us into action. It also often does not come out of perfect situations; it is like a diamond which comes out of dirty coal, roses that grow out of concrete.

As Kenyans, we often forget that we are the cradle of mankind, we birthed humanity and brought it to life. We, instead, behave as if we are the toddlers of the world, continually holding out our begging bowl to be fed. Watu Wote reminds us of our nourishing powers, what comes out of us if we just look closely inside and set aside the relevant resources to actualise it.

Speaking about resources, resources were at the base of a hearty argument film industry practitioners found themselves in early this month. The bane of the argument was on who owned Watu Wote. Is it a Kenyan film or a German film? While having possibly 95 percent input by Kenyans (from scripting to acting to crew), it was conceived and fully funded by the German students who made it. Indeed, it is German names we see attached to the Oscar nomination credits. The danger of claiming Kenyan ownership in this case is that we will continue to be complacent in movie production, serving as hired hands on foreign-owned productions, rather than earnestly seeking to set up a similarly conducive environment for film making, that many more Kenyans will own and profit from.

Related to this, this very February saw Kenyans in the creative industries protest loudly at the change of the name of the Ministry of Sports, Culture and the Arts to Ministry of Sports and Heritage, and no Principal Secretary having been appointed for the arts. Many are enraged at this, believing it is a slap in the face of the arts and have since been agitating for the setting up of an arts ministry on its own. 

A ministry dedicated to the arts would enable more access to the arts, it would enable more Kenyans to become immersed and marinated in its transcendence, such that they become entrenched and embedded in its flavour.  The government has made many promises to the arts (promises of a film fund, a film bill, a film policy) but has not delivered on them. And yet the arts are one of Kenya’s greatest sources of soft power and glory for the country.

So far, Watu Wote has gotten selections, prizes, nominations and rave reviews at more than 20 film festivals and competitions internationally. As it win’s at the Oscar’s in March (I bet you it will) and brings further prominence to the country, let Kenya, too, give back to the arts, that the industry may play its role better.

Watu Wote’s power and resonance in a time of global right-wing hate, increased racism, continual closing of borders for refugees, increased international militarism, and shrinking spaces for democracy around the world; reminds us that even though we look down on ourselves and often perceive ourselves as having nothing to give, there still is a lot that lies within us. We are the parent of the world, we are the solution to global problems. For this to happen, however, we must first humanise ourselves to the core.

Nominees

 

The 2018 Oscar Awards take place on March 4, 2018.

Nominees of key categories:

Best Picture:

1. Call Me by Your Name; 2. Darkest Hour; 3. Dunkirk; 4. Get Out; 5. Lady Bird; 6. Phantom Thread; 7. The Post; 8. The Shape of Water; 9. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Lead Actress:

1. Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water; 2. Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; 3. Margot Robbie, I, Tonya; 4. Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird; 5. Meryl Streep, The Post

Lead Actor:

1. Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name; 2. Daniel Day-Lewis Phantom Thread; 3. Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out; 4. Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour; 5. Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Director:

1. Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan; 2. Get Out, Jordan Peele; 3. Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig; 4. Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson; 5. The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro

Original Screenplay:

1. The Big Sick, Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani; 2. Get Out, Jordan Peele; 3. Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig; 4. The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor; 5. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh

Cinematography:

1. Blade Runner 2049, Roger Deakins; 2. Darkest Hour, Bruno Delbonnel; 3. Dunkirk, Hoyte van Hoytema; 4. Mudbound, Rachel Morrison; 5. The Shape of Water, Dan Laustsen

Best Live Action Short Film:

1. DeKalb Elementary, Reed Van Dyk; 2. The Eleven O’Clock, Derin Seale, Josh Lawson; 3. My Nephew Emmett, Kevin Wilson, Jr.; 4. The Silent Child, Chris Overton, Rachel Shenton; 5. Watu Wote/All of Us, Katja Benrath, Tobias Rosen

Best Foreign Language Film:

1. A Fantastic Woman (Chile); 2. The Insult (Lebanon); 3. Loveless (Russia); 4. On Body and Soul (Hungary); The Square (Sweden)