INTERVIEW WITH PETER IMPORTANT MURIMI

FILM An Interview with Director Peter Murimi THEO SMITH An intimate and inspirational documentary, I Am which is repressing, and the next thing is the society, Samuel tells the brave story of Samuel and Alex who that’s where we see the clip of Samuel’s friend being fall in love and handle the pressures surrounding beaten. But after that, what’s really important was his Kenya’s law and loyalty towards his family’s needs. As relationship with his father and Alex, but also his life it’s playing at the London Film Festival, I spoke with - where does he work and how does he live? To me, the film’s director Peter Murimi where we discuss those were the things that I really wanted to focus on about the film itself, the challenges that he faced because, especially in Kenya where there’s almost when filming it, and what it means for it to be playing nothing about the narrative of a gay man onscreen, at the festival. I just wanted to have as many connection points to What is the film about, and how did you UP He has a job, he goes to Church, he has a lover, who’s come with the idea of it? a man, but still has a relationship that’s really strong It’s a film about love and resilience, and hopefully and sweet. That, for me, was the focus of the film. when you watch it, you know what it’s really like for a gay man in Kenya. The idea came from a very personal You shot this over five years, how did place: there’s someone really close to me who’s gay you edit it to make it feel like a cohesive and they were really struggling with their family at narrative? the time. So, I remember we were brainstorming, and Basically, the father’s story is the spine of the film. I was like ‘If only there’s a documentary that when When you look at every other thing happening, the parents watch it, they’ll really understand what’s Samuel’s relationship with Alex is constant: they going on’. At the time, we couldn’t come up with a love each other at the beginning, and they love each clever documentary, so I said that we’ll make one as other at the end. The only thing that advances their a story. That’s when through a mutual friend, during relationship is when they get engaged. However, the my research, I got introduced to Samuel. I told him father begins the film by saying ‘I want my son to have about the idea, and he said he always wanted to do a wife’. But at the end, he has to manage and deal with this because when he was younger, he didn’t know the fact that his son is gay. So, the father’s narrative any grown-up who was gay, and always thought arc is what guided us in and somewhat shaped the something was wrong like, ‘I’m the only gay man in the final outcome. world’. He said, ‘I wanted to do it for the generation behind me, and that they can see a gay man who’s You filmed it in a verité-style, and there from a village in Kenya’. are moments where you know more behind the camera than Samuel’s family does. How Leading on from that, what drew you were you able to stay unobtrusive? towards Samuel’s story? During the filming, it was really important for it to be What I also found very interesting about Samuel, really intimate. In that sense, at the beginning it’s like, especially back home in Kenya, is that society tends ‘I’m going on this journey with Samuel’, and Samuel is to put people in boxes - if you’re gay, then they think the first person who was on board with the film. But the you’re automatically not Christian, or your African roots next hurdle was bringing the rest of Samuel’s world are not as strong. But for Samuel, you can say he’s into this narrative that we’re making, and essentially, traditional, he’s conservative in his political leaning, we built it brick by brick. I started with Samuel, then he’s very religious, and he’s gay. So, in a sense, he Alex, and then the next level was to bring the family on was going against this rule that society has of boxing board. But, how do you achieve that without bringing people, and I found that very fascinating. a catalyst for conflict? So, I had to form my own At the start of the film, it says that happening. But when the father fell out with Samuel homosexual activity is illegal in Kenya. As and Alex when he discovered their relationship, he well as Samuel’s story, was that something also fell out with me. you also wanted to address? show there’s a lot of similarities with any other Kenyan. relationship with the parents and document what was Not really and in a sense, that’s why we chose to show Oh really? that right at the start. We felt it was important to give Yeah! And when the reconciliation happened, there the context of the world setting. Part of that is the law, was also a reconciliation that I had behind the scenes.

He said, ‘okay, I see what you’re trying to do, now I understand’, so he was on board with the project and wanted to finish it. I became part of that family, I’m still part of that family in a sense, they call me every day and they’re very enthusiastic to share this story with the world.

What challenging aspects were there when making this film? The challenge was that when I decided to make this story intimate and verité, everyone had to trust me, get used to me, and then forget about me. Especially with Samuel’s friends understandably, they had to be apparent, so it took a lot of time for them to understand and get onboard. Once they did it was absolutely fine, but getting that trust and intimacy was the challenge.

Can you explain more about that trust and intimacy? I’ll give an example. In the first scene, we see Samuel’s friends talking about the challenges they have with the families. To get to that scene, it took me three years for everyone in that circle to say, ‘you’re a cool guy, we like what you’re doing, we accept you in this circle’, and then I shot that scene during the fourth year.

As the film jumps between the Kenyan countryside and Nairobi, was there a contrast behind the camera? Like Samuel, I also grew up in the countryside, so it felt very refreshing when we went there. When we were filming in Nairobi, Samuel lives in an informal settlement: it’s very crowded, it’s very noisy, it’s very hectic, and also that’s where the most danger would come from. However, once we left the city, and I tried to portray this in the story through the sweeping drone shots, it’s like everything is peace, it becomes more calmer. There’s another drama with the family but the physical peace is there. That was refreshing for me, and really refreshing for Samuel because it meant he was less alert to the physical risk.

Your film is playing here at the London Film Festival, one of the biggest of the year. How does it feel for it to be picked, as well as playing to a massive audience online? It means the world to me, especially in two ways. One is that I’m Kenyan, and it’s very nice to see a Kenyan story, made fully by a Kenyan crew, being on this world stage. So, the validation that that gives means that our stories can be on the world platform and be appreciated, which is really good. The second thing is this film has to be taken home at some point, which is going to be difficult. Just getting the support here, showing it at the London Film Festival, getting more allies, getting more followers and supporters will help us so much down the road when you’re back home and the road is potentially bumpier.

As this is a Kenyan film, would you like to see more films from countries like Kenya being shown to wider audiences on a world platform like LFF? Absolutely, and it will be really refreshing. As I said, for me, I want to give big accolades to LFF for being brilliant enough to show it. When making a first film, we wanted to be really authentic because you’re normally told, ‘try to conform to how other people do international documentaries’, but we encouraged to be treated with our own voice, and how we tell it. We left all of our African nuances in the film, like there’s no big conflict with the father and son so we’ve shown how Africans would handle it. So it being here, it’s very important to have that diverse narrative and voice, and I hope more African films can come to the London Film Festival and many others from around the world.

As The Edge is a student entertainment magazine, what would you like university students and young people to take away from your film? There are two things I want them to take away. One is to celebrate ‘love’ because my film, ultimately, is about love – the love between Samuel and Alex, which is beautiful, and also the love between father and son, despite all the disagreements and difficulty. But to me, and this is what I think is the core of the film - it’s about breaking boundaries that people have been forced into and allowing them to be who they are. That’s the biggest message in the film: we should all just be who we are, and let’s knock the walls and barriers that restrict and conform us!

Do you have any plans for what you would like TO do next? Yes, I have a few ideas I’m involved with, but I’m just planting the seeds. I’m just waiting to see if they would actually germinate and shoot, so I’m a bit scared to let them get out of my lips.

Lastly, would you like to return to Samuel’s story in the future? I think, for the film, it’s finished. But as I said, for what we’ve been through together, that is my second family, so we’ll always be in touch with them. There have been developments after, and we all follow each of them. However professionally, that camera has been put down for that project.