Jim Chuchu

Stories of Our Lives

Jim Chuchu

Louis Brooke, Allan Bryan Weku

Created by the members of a Nairobi-based arts collective — who have removed their names from the film for fear of reprisal — this anthology film that dramatizes true-life stories from Kenya’s oppressed LGBTQ community is both a labour of love and a bold act of militancy.

To Catch a Dream

Jim Chuchu

Ajuma Nasenyana, Tom Nandi

Ajuma - a grieving widow - is desperate to stop her recurring nightmares. In an effort to end them once and for all, she explores a forgotten fairy-tale remedy which leads her to unexpected discoveries.

Tapi!

Jim Chuchu

Tapi! is a short documentary that explores a formative moment in the life of Kenyan ritual healer Jackson, one of the last practitioners of the ritual healing practice called utapishi ('tapi'). The leaders of the local Christian church are not happy with the influence of the ritual and decide to go to court. Jackson pushes back against the threat of tapi's prohibition by local Christian church movements who seem to be determined to erase the complex history of a people.

Homecoming

Jim Chuchu

Elsaphan Njora, Patricia Kihoro

Kenyan Jim Chuchu’s short film casts a voyeur’s obsession with the girl next door, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, science fiction and fiction.

African Metropolis

Philippe Lacôte, Jim Chuchu

The vitality of the African city has provided local filmmakers with a rich array of stories for their films. African Metropolis presents six short films that examine the complexity of urban life in Abidjan, Cairo, Dakar, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi. They run the gamut of genres, but in all the central character is the city itself. A Jewish pensioner lives alone in a Johannesburg apartment, the last resident of an ever-changing city. In a Nairobi of the future, one man searches for the girl of his dreams. Dakar is the backdrop to an intimate conversation between two women. Abidjan once played host to the American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In Cairo a musician sees the gap between rich and poor expand. And a final film confronts the perils of the poverty trap.