In the amber glow of evening light on the first day of April 2025, the creative forces of Sanaa Post and Baraza Media Lab orchestrated a watershed moment for Kenya’s cinematic landscape. More of a barbershop conversation than a formal conference, the gathering brought together the industry’s most compelling voices in a chorus of wisdom, challenge, and possibility.
For generations, cinema has been characterised as art’s rebellious child, untamed, passionate, glamourous but also gloriously resistant to constraint. Yet the evening’s most resonant theme emerged from a different narrative: that true artistic freedom paradoxically requires the embrace of discipline and structure.
The day’s panel for this inaugural event featured prominent voices, including Fred Makori, Angie Mwandanda, Denise Kibisu, Fakii Liwali, Kenneth Kimutai, Kimani Munene and John Jumbi. “Production is madness,” came the frank admission early in the dialogue, a statement that hung in the air with the weight of collective experience. This acknowledgment wasn’t merely observation but an invitation to bring order to chaos through the integration of financial stewardship.
As productions grow in ambition and scale, the foundation of bringing on board professionals, such as accountants, promises not just solvency but sustainability, allowing creative dreams to build upon solid ground rather than shifting sand. At the end of the day, the implications for Kenya’s evolving film economy would be profound.
The Contract Conundrum
The need for transparency in contractual relationships remains crucial. It is an area where for some management intermediaries between the actors and the production companies can help navigate these often-complex arrangements in a world that is, itself, in flux. The panellists advocated for clearly documenting all agreements. In an industry usually characterised by passion and impulse, this embrace of structured partnership signals a maturation that could revolutionise how stories move from imagination to screen.
The advice for financing was practical: identify potential investors, approach them systematically, and ensure all financial arrangements are thoroughly documented in contracts.
The Missing Piece: Marketing
Perhaps no topic stirred more animated discussion than marketing, described by Angie Mwandanda as “the piece that is missing” in Kenya’s cinematic equation. The conversation revealed an often-overlooked reality: picture marketing not as an afterthought but as integral storytelling, deserving a dedicated budget and specialised talent.
The emotion in the room was palpable as creators recounted tales of brilliant films that died quiet deaths, unseen and unloved, not for lack of quality but for lack of visibility. This collective recognition points toward a new era where Kenya’s stories reach local audiences and global consciousness, carried there by strategic, professional marketing efforts.
Distribution Wisdom
Kimani Munene’s contribution to distribution carried particular weight, challenging creators to practice emotional detachment from their work, not as an abandonment of passion but as an embrace of possibility. The advice to engage distributors “through the whole shooting process” reimagines these partners not as mere merchants but as co-creators of cinematic destiny.
It is an approach that promises transformation for an industry where isolation has too often been the norm, with everyone creating in their own silos, as recounted by Santa Mukabana. By embracing distribution as integral rather than terminal, Kenya’s filmmakers stand to gain wider audiences and richer creative dialogue.
Rethink the Premiere Model
One of the more controversial discussion points centred around the industry’s approach to film premieres. Kimani Munene suggested that focusing on single-day premiere events comes at the expense of sustained cinema runs. He argued that cinemas need structured release schedules, and with proper planning, there’s “space for everyone.” Fakii Liwali saw premieres serving primarily as marketing opportunities. The panel emphasised the need to shift from thinking of these events as premieres to recognising them as “releases,” educating audiences about the importance of a film’s entire theatrical lifecycle.
Building a Sustainable Kenyan Industry
The most poignant moment of the evening came with a question that transcended business strategy to touch the heart of cultural leadership: How do we walk right to ensure guys after us will fly?
Nyakundi Isaboke, award-winning actor and part of the audience, cautioned against constant comparisons to Hollywood, suggesting the industry needs to develop models appropriate for its own context. What Next?
The evening’s dialogue flowed through diverse territories of film business ecology: creating ownership and investment, the strategic timing of releases to avoid cannibalisation, the concept of a unified “Cinema Day” to cultivate audience enthusiasm, and the essential balance between premiere marketing and sustained cinema runs.
The consistent thread remained clear throughout each exploration: professionalism as a pathway to artistic fulfilment rather than its opposition. The repeated call to “hire professionals” emerged not as the surrender of creative control but as a multiplication of creative possibilities.
As the discussion concluded, the atmosphere held both gravity and hope. An industry stood at the threshold of transformation, armed with both vision and pragmatism. In the delicate balance between art and commerce, Kenya’s film community glimpsed not compromise but possibility, a future where passion finds expression through profession and dreams find reality through discipline.
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