S.A.F.E Kenya (Sponsored Art for Kenya) brings the tale of Sarah (Namurru Sarara), a young maasai girl whose life is tangled in a web of familial pressure, and cultural expectations amidst her will to propel her education.
After an unexpected financial huddle in her family, a suitor offers her hand in marriage with a hefty dowry, an offer her father (Olemontoi Petero) considers owing to the pressure, contrary to his wife (Purity Murkuk) who weighs advice of advocates against FGC.
Inspired by fifteen years of work in the Loita Hills by SAFE Maa, Sarah reflects on the work and achievements of SAFE Maa to date whilst offering the opportunity to catalyze initiatives towards total abandonment of FGC and away from early marriage. S.A.F.E Kenya is at the forefront of ensuring the benefits of embracing fundamental human rights for girls and women will be felt across the realms of health, education, and community resilience.
The aforementioned clearly reflects Evelyn’s (Ngoije Siloma) yearning to learn as Sarah, her best friend does. She faces her own battle as her family pushes her towards the cut in preparations for marriage.
Director’s Statement
The making of this film was a deeply collaborative process, out of the ordinary traditions of filmmaking. Sarah was eighteen years in the making, based on the true stories of the Loita people and involving improvisation and spontaneous creative processes, allowing a deeply personal and cultural tradition to be sensitively examined and unpicked.
Working with first-time actors requires an ability to tailor characters and stories to the individual performers and enable their strengths and unique talents to tell their true stories. We wanted to create a narrative that would capture the injustice and suffering that this cultural practice inflicts, as well as build the confidence of young women and girls to resist the tradition and to convene the whole community behind total abandonment.
Through collating all of the conversations, debates, and discussions with Maasai women and men that had taken place over the many years of implementing the FGC abandonment project, our aim was to create a story that explained the journey towards abandonment and highlighted the obstacles that are preventing full abandonment in the Loita Community. We were particularly interested in telling the journey of a young woman in such a patriarchal society as she approached the traditional age for ‘graduation’.” Nick Reding
Sarah is not only a feature film but also a movement transforming the conversation around women’s health and rights in Maasai communities, pushing for access to education, and propelling forward movements towards the elimination of early marriage and FGC.
A culmination of eighteen years of using traditional Maasai song and story to break down barriers around FGC, and advocating for its abandonment, S.A.F.E Kenya’s Sarah takes it a notch higher as it is set to premiere at the Pan African Film and Arts Festival (PAFF) this February, with screenings on the 11th and 14th.
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