“Stingo” means “style” but is an out-dated swahili slang word. Yet nothing is out dated with this experimental project of friends and photographer Jim Chuchu. Together with stylists Kepha Maina and Sunny Dolat, Producer, Lucille Kahara and Kangai Mwiti doing make up, plus a few good looking models, this team makes things look good! Hinging loosely on the sense of a fashion blog / workshop / experiment or I would add 20% free time. This productive exercise has taken off quite successfully with stylish low key black & white photographs, a few sexy attitude images and a mix of soft light photos.
Catch up on Jim Chuchu’s interview on DESIGN (A South Africa based Art & Design Magazine). Its available in digital form (pretty cool!). See Page 72

An animation for Vital Voices, an organisation working globally for women’s independence. This film tells the childhood story of Kakenya Ntaiya, a Masai woman who negotiated herself out of an arranged marriage and convinced her village to collect money for her to study in the USA. She has since returned to the village and built a girls’ school there. Directed by Aaron Kisner and Pistachios. Music by Dan Radlauer. Produced by Blacklist.

The piece chronicles the real-life and inspiring story of Kakenya Ntaiya: a young girl who —throughout her childhood— escaped dogmatic African traditions toward women by pursuing a higher education and fulfilling her dream of becoming a teacher.The style does not deviate too far the signature Pistachios aesthetic. The look is abstract, graphic, and sparse, which recalls the emblematic patterns and geometric taste of African design that has become globally acknowledged.

- Motiongrapher

Kenya’s first sci-fi film recently won Best Short Film: Wanuri Kahiu for PUMZI at the 2010 Cannes Independent film festival. Congrats.

Synopsis

A 20 min Sc-Fi film about futuristic Africa, 35 years after World War III “The Water War”.

Nature is extinct. The outside is dead. Asha lives and works as a museum curator in one of the indoor communities set up by the Maitu Council. When she receives a box in the mail containing soil, she plants an old seed in it and the seed starts to germinate instantly. Asha appeals to the Council to grant her permission to investigate the possibility of life on the outside but the Council denies her exit visa. Asha breaks out of the inside community to go into the dead and derelict outside to plant the growing seedling and possibly find life on the outside.

Omondi Abudho is a digital photographer from Kenya. His creative and unusual resume has captured the attention of notable blog like the huffington post . Omondi’s resume has been featured and called one of the best creative resumes of 2009.We had a chance to ask him about his creative process and this is what he had to say…

I got tired of my flash page flip CV/Portfolio which i did in 2008. So i decided to do something different, something that would out-do my previous CV. It all started when i got a postcard from Photolibrary™… i thought to myself, Direct Mail is not dead… why not create a CV that would be in form of a direct mailer? So one theme came in mind ’ Creative Juice’ hence the idea of a Creative Juice Box in form of a juice carton which would contain the juice (my creative work; Art direction and photography)… but then the shape of the juice carton could not contain my printed portfolio without folding them. So i switch the brief a bit, but maintained the big idea.I changed the box to a coffee box…hence the shape and the text ’locally roasted and freshly ground’.

Thinking outside the box is the same as thinking in a box inside-out… so i wrote the copy to say just that which incidentally lends into the whole box idea while maintaining the creative juice idea…

So to authenticate the execution i picked up most packaging elements such as nutritional values, ingredients, handling instructions, approvals and converted them to my CV elements. The general feel i wanted people to get is that i am a product that is manufactured locally, creative and is unique.

With the idea in place, i took a box template from my packaging stock, picked a couple of icons from a stock library, my photo and stitched everything together; to make a box.

For the electronic version i decided to include prepress marks that subsequently makes the artwork a printing proof, while for the actual direct mailer i printed the artwork folded it and sent it out to 2 Creative Directors. But before i did that, i did a simple test of the idea… i ran it through Ads of the World founder Ivan who pointed out some mistakes i had made but loved the idea and the execution.

Next i found several websites mentions. Referring to my CV as one of the most creative CVs of all times.

Lulu Kitololo is a storyteller and ideamonger, using any medium necessary. That usually involves design and art direction but also illustration, writing, facilitating workshops, giving talks, and taking full advantage of that beautiful playground called the internet, any chance she gets!

Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, Lulu studied Communications Design in New York and worked as an advertising art director before moving to the UK to pursue an African Studies degree.

She now lives in Manchester and collaborates with clients around the world, promoting positive social and/or environmental change.

Continuing our feature on African Academy Movie Award nominated film, we present to you another Kenyan film, Togetherness Supreme.

TOGETHERNESS SUPREME is the story of Kamau, an artist, Otieno, a hustler, and their shared love interest for Alice, a preacher’s daughter. All three live in Kibera, east Africa’s largest shantytown, home to a million people in Nairobi, Kenya. All three are from different tribes but are searching for tribal unity. The film follows these three characters in their quest for change in the community they live in, their fights, challenges and victories. After the 2007 Kenya presidential elections, Kibera is torn apart by conflicting tribal loyalties and so are the three characters.

We also had to include this documentary about one of the children of the film. It is a behind the scene look at the life of Teddy Onyaga one of the stars of the film.

Nominated for an African Movie Academy Award, this documentary film Peace Wanted Alive: Kenya at the Crossroads is powerful and well made.

Director: Judy Kibinge
Producers: Peter Kariuki, Judy Kibinge
DOP / Cameraman: Edvine Maloba
Photography: Georgina Goodwin, Charles Kimani, Boniface Mwangi
Editor: Raphael Kamuz

On December 27^th 2007, 11 million Kenyans queued peacefully to vote for president. The results were bitterly disputed and two days later, the country was on fire. Most badly affected were Nairobi’s informal settlements. The capital city ground to a halt and it seemed as though peace had died.

But as we follow the journeys of a handful of young Nairobians and their struggles during and after the violent post-election violence conflicts in this powerful documentary containing never before seen archive footage , we will find new reason to hope and believe in Kenya.