The Kenya Actors Guild showed up to this year’s Kenya National Drama & Film Festival with more than just good intentions. Led by National Chairperson Peter Kawa, the Guild was present from day one, joining the opening ceremony at The Kagumo Teachers Training College, where the 64th edition of the festival got underway. It wasn’t just a cameo appearance as over the course of the festival, KAG planted flags on several fronts, on the awards stage, behind the scenes, and even at the county governor’s office.
Before the applause started, the Guild made a quiet but meaningful contribution. Through the Office of the Executive Director, KAG handed over four trophies to the festival’s National Executive Committee, received by Executive Secretary Janet Langat and National Chairman Prof. C.J. Odhiambo. This small gesture had a clear message, that this is an organisation that sees itself as a partner in building the festival, not just a guest at it.
That message carried through to the classroom. As part of the official KAG-KNDFF partnership, the Guild ran masterclasses for university students and teachers across the festival’s activity days. The sessions were led by actors Ian Mbugua, Gilbert Lukalia, and Brian Ogolla, working professionals who brought practical, industry-grounded insight to a room full of young performers hungry for exactly that kind of access. What gave the masterclasses an unexpected dimension was the involvement of Danish director Jonas Elmer, whose international perspective added a layer to the conversations that you don’t often get at a local festival. For students used to learning in relative isolation from the wider industry, it was a different kind of afternoon.
KAG also took on the responsibility of recognising outstanding performers in the University Categories, presenting trophies and certificates to those who stood out at this stage of the competition. For a Guild that has made nurturing emerging talent central to its mandate, it was a natural fit.
Away from the festival grounds, KAG leadership used the occasion to push forward a broader agenda. Before the now widely discussed meeting with Nyeri County Governor Dr. Mutahi Kahiga, the Guild made a courtesy call to the Vice Chancellor of Dedan Kimathi University, a deliberate move to ground their county proposals in an institution that already speaks the same language. The University is no stranger to the creative economy; in 2020, the Kenya Film Commission launched a film hub on its grounds, complete with a cinema hall and animation studio. That existing infrastructure makes DeKUT a natural anchor for whatever the Guild is building in the region, and the VC expressed interest in further partnership engagements.
The conversation with Governor Kahiga followed, focused on establishing Nyeri County as a regional hub for the Guild’s operations within the Central Region, bringing the Guild’s resources and networks closer to actors who have never had reason to look to a national body for support. The meeting ended with concrete next steps, including outreach programmes to identify and support local talent in the county.
The KNDFF has, for decades, served as one of the few platforms where Kenyan performing talent, from secondary schools through university, receives formal recognition. What it has historically lacked is a strong professional bridge; somewhere between winning a trophy at a university drama festival and building a sustainable career on stage or screen, a lot of talent simply falls through the cracks. KAG’s growing involvement in the festival seeks to address exactly that gap.
The Nyeri engagement adds another layer to this. Kenya’s creative industry has long been accused of being Nairobi-centric, with talent outside the capital largely left to develop without institutional support or visibility. A regional hub in Nyeri would not solve that overnight. Still, it is a serious first step toward making the Guild’s resources and networks accessible to actors who have never had reason to look to a national body for support.
Taken together, what KAG did at this year’s KNDFF was less about the festival itself and more about what kind of organisation the Guild is choosing to become. Present at the grassroots and invested in the pipeline, and seemingly aware that visibility alone is not enough.
But goodwill and groundwork only go so far. Kenya’s creative industry has seen its fair share of promising starts, initiatives launched with fanfare, partnerships announced with handshakes, and talent celebrated at festivals who are never heard from again. The difference this time, if there is one, will not be visible in the photos from Dedan Kimathi University. It will show up later, in whether the Nyeri hub actually materialises, in whether the actors awarded at this festival find a professional structure waiting for them when they come looking, in whether the Guild can hold itself together long enough to deliver on what it is promising.
The work being done is real, yes, but whether it adds up to something lasting is still very much an open question, and one the industry needs to answer before it runs out of people willing to ask it.
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