Naomba Niseme taking on the issues

Dar es Salaam. When the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA) unveiled the list of nominees in December something rather bizarre happened; not many people paid attention to ‘Naomba Niseme’ a film by Stanford Kihore.

The film had garnered three nominations in the Overall Africa Category, Best East Africa and Best indigenous Language making it the most nominated Tanzanian film at the awards now entering its fifth edition.

The nomination of ‘Naomba Niseme’ and ‘Aisha’ in the Overall Africa category is the first for films from East Africa with the epic event expected to take place in Lagos in March.

The contest in the category is tight especially with competition from Ghanaian and Nigerian productions at the gala where the winner is decided by voters.

Shot in Dar es Salaam the film takes on some of the thorny topics in African tradition, issues that are sometimes taboo to be addressed in public.

Carefully crafted it brings to surface the truth that despite changing times traditions such as widow inheriting are still rampant and those who dare speak against the proponents of such practices risk being stigmatized.

Speaking to the beat Stanford Kihore who makes his directorial debut in the 17-minute feature film says there are plenty of stories that happen around us but unfortunately some film have chosen to mimic other places.

“This film comes back to our roots to tell those stories that we sometimes leave to Western film makers to come and tell,” says Kihore who has in the past produced films such as ‘CPU’, ‘Mpango Mbaya’ and ‘Ni Noma’.

In a fast paced action packed production, he chooses to use less known but very powerful actors blending both young and old talent in a suspense packed production.

“Most of these actors have been around but there are those whom we got through the Tanzania Movie Talent search,” he says.

According to him though he believes that it is important to have Hollywood quality movies the content should remain as local as possible.

“By imitating what someone else is doing or has done we are losing our identity which is a key element in cinema and originality in general,” he says.

At a time when critics have levied vicious claims that the industry’s fortunes are plummeting, Kihore believes that Cinema is nothing but pure art and creativity.

“Our film industry has had issues to contend with especially with the fact there has hardly been any room for the division of labour as most of the film actors were so many things in wrapped in one,” says Kihore.

This he adds: In a modern world of cinema this affects creativity and in the process compromising the quality of the work at hand.

‘Naomba Nisamehe’ just like ‘Aisha’ has been to several film festivals across the continent premiering at the 2016 Zanzibar International Film Festival.

The film has also been at the Ghana Black Star Film Festival and at the Rapid Lion Film Festival in South Africa.

Staford Kihore a self taught film maker has been in the field since 2003 starting off as an animator and his first editorial work was in AliKiba’s Cinderella which was released in 2006.

He went on to work on Single Mtambalike’s ‘Swahiba’ and later worked on ‘Mahabuba part 1’, then ‘Mahababu part 2’.