Cinema
Saïkati
Anne Mungai · 1992
Synopsis
Saïkati, a young Maasai, lives in a village in the Mara. Her family has decided to marry her to the chief's son, but she dreams of studying and of independence. She runs away to Nairobi to her cousin Monica, who promises to help her find a job to pay for school. The capital proves harsher than she imagined, and the young woman finds herself torn between the life she has fled and the one she is discovering.
Context
Presented by historians as the first feature film by a woman director based in Nairobi, the film was financed by the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication. According to Sheila Petty, the script, worked on with an adviser, received scenes contrary to its author's wishes. At the 1993 Fespaco it won a UNICEF prize for the image of African women. A sequel, in which the heroine becomes a flying doctor, came out around 1998; Olivier Barlet, in Africultures, found it too didactic, despite the welcome of the Nairobi audience.
Who it is for
For anyone who wants to see one of the first Kenyan feature-length fiction films, carried by a heroine who chooses her own life.
Prizes and reception
Awarded at Fespaco in 1993, it was programmed in tribute to its director by the Kitale film festival in 2026.
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