By Denis | Hot Sun Foundation trainee
Denis
I’ve always loved watching movies. I still do. You could even say that I was kind of obsessed with movies when I was a child. When I was about six or seven years old, my older brothers brought movies to our house. I would stop my homework then and I refused to continue because I wanted to watch the movies. At some point, my parents forbid my brothers to bring home any more movies. They thought the problem was solved. But it actually got worse. I started to go to movie shops to buy movies. But I didn’t have money, so I stole money from my parents. I won’t lie; I had a problem with stealing. But I only stole money to buy the movies. It was that bad with my addiction. It only stopped when my father decided to remove the TV. That meant no movies for anyone. At least I wasn’t stealing anymore. But it didn’t stop me from watching films.
In secondary school – I was fifteen – I decided to become a filmmaker. I realised that there were no action movies in Kenya, and the ones that are produced here are of very bad quality. But I loved action movies. So I thought I just had to do it myself.
There was a very difficult time in my life. I was born in Eastleigh, Nairobi, but when I was about ten my father died in a road accident. He had been the bread winner of our family and my mother didn’t know how to make a living in Nairobi without him. So my mother decided to move to Muranga’a with us. It’s a rural area where my father’s family lives.
My mother thought it was a good idea to move close to relatives. But instead of supporting us they tried to make my mother sell my father’s truck and get money. They thought she isn’t very smart and it would be easy to snatch money from her. But she refused. At this time my older brothers joined secondary school which made it even harder because my mother had to pay their school fees. She opened a little cereal shop and we managed to survive somehow.
Watch for the second part of Denis' story, when he comes to Nairobi to join Hot Sun Foundation to become a filmmaker.
Your support makes it possible for youth like Denis to learn filmmaking at the only hands-on filmmaking training centre for youth who have the talent but not the funds to learn filmmaking.
Over 70 youth have learned filmmaking at Hot Sun Foundation and are working in the Kenya media industry.
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Thank you for all you do.
Links:
By Benta | Hot Sun Foundation film school trainee
By Ronald | Hot Sun Foundation filmmaking graduate
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