Pumzi - Invitational Film
Directed by: Wanuri Kahiu
Sci-fi/African | 23m

About the Film: A 20 min Sc-Fi film about futuristic Africa, 35 years after World War III ‘The Water War’. Asha is a curator at a virtual natural history museum in the Maitu Community located in the Eastern African territory. Outside of the community, all nature is extinct. When she receives a box in the mail containing soil, she decides to plant a seed in it. The seed starts to germinate instantly. Despite repeated instructions from her superior to throw out the soil sample, she appeals to the Council to grant her an exit visa to leave the community and plant the seed. Her visa is denied and she is evacuated from the Museum. Asha decides to break out of the inside community to plant the seed in the ‘dead’ outside. She battles with her own fear and apprehension of the dead and derelict outside world to save the growing plant.

Screening Times @ Broughal Auditorium with "Der Sandmann"
5:00PM Wednesday, June 15
9:20PM Saturday, June 18

About the Director: “My first concern is making films for and about Africans; films that celebrate the people, the traditions and the land that are the life-source of art and culture.”
Wanuri Kahiu’s passion for film started at 16, where she worked with Ace Communications on a documentary about FGM (Female Genital Mutilation). At Ace she learnt how to tell educational and entertaining stories about the issues affecting cosmopolitan East Africa. From that point on, Wanuri would spend any available time interning in entertainment companies locally and internationally, and managed to work as a Production intern at Pinewood Studios, London, a Production Assistant in Alexandria Productions, Virginia and as a Director’s Intern at Paramount Studios, Hollywood, during the production of Italian Job directed by F. Gary Gray.
After attending UCLA’s Master program in Film Directing, Wanuri’s professional debut was directing a behind-the-scenes documentary The Spark that Unites (2006) for the film “Catch- A-Fire” (Universal Films/ Working Title) directed by Phillip Noyce, starring Derek Luke and Tim Robbins.
Wanuri honed her filmmaking skill with her first Kenyan film Ras Star (2007), a short film based on a teenage artist trying to make it into a talent show despite all odds. The film was produced for M-Net, Africa’s largest digital satellite channel.
In 2008, Wanuri completed her first feature film From A Whisper based on the real life events surrounding the August 7, twin bombings of US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998.
The film recently won awards at the Africa Movie Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Picture. It also won the Golden Dhow award for Best East African Picture at Zanzibar International Film Festival, Best Picture at Kenya’s 2009 Kalasha Film Awards, and Best Picture and Best Director at the 2009 Kenya International Film Festival (KIFF).
Wanuri also directed a documentary about the life of Nobel peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai entitled For Our Land (2009) for M-NET’s “Great Africans” series.
Having completed Pumzi, Wanuri wrote and directed the futuristic Sci-Fi short film that found her exploring new frontiers on the subject of environmental degradation. Pumzi has attracted funding and distribution from Focus Features (part of NBC universal), Goethe Institut and the Changa Moto Fund.
In 2010, pursuing her quest to unravel her vision, Wanuri is interested to partner with global filmmakers of like mind interested in telling African stories.