Kibera Hamlets

Kibera Hamlets from Josphat Keya on Vimeo.

VOICE FROM THE WOMB

Kenyans are about to go into this process of voting once again. This time round it's not about electing new people to parliament but its about the law of the land, the constitution.

Now the politicians have not been left behind this process, they have divided themselves inti two camps, one supporting the raft constitution, the other opposing it. They've brought this division to the people, and now there are traversing the whole country, each campaigning for his side. In their campaigns each camp states "reasons" as to why they are defending their stand.

Now in the draft constitution, there have been a number of clauses that have brought controversy, and now the clergy have joined in rejecting the document. One of the thing they are not comfortable with is the clause on abortion-that it is allowable in case a doctor sites the life of the mother is in danger. The church says by allowing this clause into the constitution it will be like legalizing abortion, while the other side says that its better of to save the life of the mother than the unborn child.

Now having heard all this, i wondered which side was telling the truth and that it'd stand by it no matter what. I'm not sure if everybody that would remain on his stand.

As a filmmaker, i thought that this is an issue people need to really ponder and make that if the situation changed and became like their own, like it is them who are at this juncture...will they still remain in the same stand?

I came up with a short film on that-Voice From The Womb.

In the film, Dr Mark (the main character) is married to Alice. The setting of this film is during the era where abortion is legalised. Dr Mark being a registered Doctor, also performs the procedures. Alice has genetic fibrosis, this means that she can't have children, but somehow luckily she is three months pregnant with a son. The couple is happy.

Now this day when Dr Mark is called that his wife is admitted due to heart complications and the doctors at the hospital have to perform an operation to save her wife. Now there is a problem, for the abortion procedure, first they'll have to abort the baby. This is sad news to Dr Mark. He's told that if they try to save the baby, time wouldn't allow them to save the wife, so he has to chose between saving his wife or child. In the moment he calls his mother, the mother not knowing what to tell her some she narrates a story of a girl about to have an abortion but eventually changed hare min=d on that. Dr Mark comes to learn that the story is about his mother and him, he was the child about to be aborted but the mother decided to keep him.

What choices does Dr Mark have? That's the question the film ends leaving the audience to answer.

As the writer-director of the film, i did not want to force a choice to people, i left it open ended for people to pit themselves in that situation of Dr Mark and see, would they still remain in there current stand on abortion if faced with similar incident Dr Mark faced? Well, I'd love to hear the responses....

MEETING WITH VOICE OF KIBERA

Today i've just attended a workshop organized by Voice Of Kibera, a commuity news initiative that collects news about Kibera in form of short message service. Being part of the editorial board of the programme i had to help the participants in understanding the process which the news pieces take before being posted on the site.

MONDAY 28TH JUNE 2010

It has been quite a busy day at school. I attended meetings for planning at Kibera Film School and Voices of Kibera as one of the Editorial board members.

Still planning with my second fiction short movie-Voice From The Womb. I've just got feedback from the to-be cast and crew and that will be making my fifth and final draft of the script. Am really hoping it to be a big thing that am going to do. Tomorrow am to meet with my cast and crew to plan ahead.