Abstract:
“Leaving Kenya” is an experimental film that follows the narratives of my late Grandfather and his best friend’s wife, June Elliot, as they decide to emigrate from their native Kenya in the 1960s, during a time of decolonization, political and social unrest, eventually ending up in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In the making of the film, I wanted to find out more about the political context of the time, and the reasons why my grandfather left the country in which he was born and raised. The film comprises of standard 8mm footage shot by my late grandfather, my own footage (including an interview with above mentioned June Elliot), news archive, commentary and audio recordings. A series of vignettes or memories are intercut with news archive from the time and commentary is provided by a Kenyan narrator. These vignettes attempt to follow my grandfather’s journey from Kenya to Auckland, 2 Aotearoa, via South Africa. The film ends with an excerpt from Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta which is overlaid with footage of the Kikuyu tribe filmed by my grandfather. The experimental format favours the small screen (displayed in either a gallery setting or online) for intimate viewing as the footage was originally intended (and note the shorter duration as usually experienced within a gallery context). By comparison I would note Godard’s film The Image Book (2018) - although shown on cinema screen, was designed for television as a reflective play on the medium itself (Derzhitskaya & Golotyuk, 2018).