Reimagining Kenyan Cinema Christopher Joseph Odhiambo 9781433192463

Kenyan Cinema provides one of the most striking case studies in the growth and development of film in Eastern Africa. The film industry has grown tremendously at the turn of the 21st century. Notably, there has been a significant increase in the number of domestic film productions, film screenings, film audiences and film festivals in the country. Indeed, Kenya has become one of Africa's major film markets. Kenyan actors, actresses and films are increasingly entering and featuring in global films and markets, and are connecting with international audiences in commercial cinemas and at major international film festivals. Adding to this impressive success is an upsurge in the number of tertiary institutions training in film and a corresponding surge in the number of students pursuing film studies in and outside the country currently. In the academic circles, interest in Kenyan Cinema as a serious scholarly subject has grown exponentially. The evolution of Kenyan Cinema scholarship is also noteworthy.

Therefore, Reimagining Kenyan Cinema seeks to situate current scholarship on Kenyan Cinema within the ongoing debates in national and contemporary global film studies. It thus advocates for diverse methodologies, critical tools and theoretical perspectives in interrogating Kenyan film. This approach is premised on the realization that critical discussions on film should lead out of the films themselves towards matters of aesthetics, culture, history and society. The cumulative effect of this approach is that it allows for the presentation of a simultaneously synchronic and diachronic approach to the study of Kenyan cinema. While individual chapters will provide in-depth analyses of particular films, historical moments in Kenyan and key film texts, the chapters as a whole will cohere into a well-grounded and deeply informative collection of original contributions on the practice of Cinema in Kenya.

Charles Kebaya is a fulltime member of the Department of Languages and Linguistics at Machakos University. He has co-edited texts such as Cultural Archives of Atrocity: Essays on the Protest Tradition in Kenyan Literature, Culture and Society (2019), Language and Translation: Theory, Pedagogy and Practice (2016), and African Drama and Theatre: A Criticism (2012). He has co-authored A Workbook in Understanding Literature for Kenyan Schools (2020) and authored Federico Garcia Lorca's Subversive Theatre (2011). He has published a number of articles in referred journals on popular art, comedy and television drama in Kenya.

Christopher Joseph Odhiambo, CJ as he is popularly known, is Professor of Literature and Applied Drama/Theatre and currently serves as the Dean of the School of Postgraduate Studies at Moi University, Kenya. He holds a Dphil in Theatre for Development from Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He has won research awards and international fellowships and served as a keynote speaker in a number of conferences and symposia both locally and internationally. He has published several articles in referred journals and various book chapters on areas of theatre for development, community theatre, aesthetics of theatre and film in Kenya. He has authored Imagined Definition and Vision of the Caribbean: A Reading of George Lamming's Novels (2011), Theatre for Development in Kenya: In Search of Appropriate Procedure and Methodology (2008) and co-authored African Ethnics and Personal Names (1998) and Orientations of Drama, Theatre and Culture (1998). Currently, CJ Odhiambo serves as the National Chairman of the Kenya National Drama and Film Festival Committee.