When this year’s Academy awards air on Sunday, Kenyans will wait with baited breath to know if a film on real events that brought them together in 2015 will bag an award.
‘Watu wote’, Swahili for ‘all of us’, a film directed by German national Katja Benrath as her graduation project at Hamburg Media School is among the films nominated for Best Live Action Short Film in this year’s Oscars.
The movie is based on a true story around the events of December 2015, when Al shabab militants attacked a passenger bus headed to the border town of Mandera from the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
In that attack, as was now tradition in al shabab attacks – the attackers separated their victims, the Muslims and non Muslims. The passengers however refused to be divided along religious lines.
“So the Muslims stood up in solidarity with the Christians, in solidarity and said you are not going to kill anyone here… and if you do, you will kill us all,” said Casting Director, Lorella Jowi .
The story of religious solidarity made headlines in Kenya and across the borders. Little wonder then it became the subject of the Oscar nominated film. Its success has however baffled.
It’s the #Oscars this weekend, so #fbf to when ‘Tsotsi’ became the first #African film by an African director (@gavin_hood1) to win the #ForeignFilm category in 2006 for #southafrica https://t.co/uLu0wAsuWd Holding thumbs for @watu_wote & ‘Revolting Rhymes’ on Sunday… pic.twitter.com/0v7xmOPLBu
— Africa.film (@AfricadotFilm) March 2, 2018
