Frequently Asked Questions

What is Lola Kenya Screen?

Lola Kenya Screen is an audiovisual media movement that seeks to place production tools in the hands of children and youth for the advancement of literacy, gender equity, self expression, and democracy through moving images.Lola Kenya Screen comprises a production workshop, film exhibition, and audiovisual media platform for marketing, promoting and distributing films all rolled into one.
Lola Kenya Screen equips children and youth with the skills to understand, appreciate, and create quality audiovisual productions in particular and art in general.

What is the history of Lola Kenya Screen?

Having worked as an arts and culture journalist, jury member at international art, culture and film festivals, volunteer and coordinator of the African Cine Week and having trained in organising and managing audiovisual markets and festivals, Lola Kenya Screen founding director Ogova Ondego saw too many yawning gaps in the audiovisual media sector in Kenya that needed to be filled in but few people were willing to do something about them.
So, out of protest, Lola Kenya Screen—Kenya’s first international film festival—was mooted in a nondescript hotel on Tom Mboya Street, Nairobi, one afternoon in October 2005. A month later, it was launched in Cape Town, held its first monthly Lola Kenya Screen Film Forum at Goethe-Institut in Nairobi in December 2005, and the first annual Lola Kenya Screen held in August 2006 at Goethe-Institut and Alliance Francaise in the Nairobi central business district.

Why a film festival for children?

Children are agents of change. Lola Kenya Screen is a movement that seeks to entrench in Kenya and eastern Africa the culture of making and consuming quality audiovisual productions that bring about socio-economic development. The present and the future belong to children and only they can shape it.

Is Lola Kenya Screen the only children’s film festival on the African continent?

Lola Kenya Screen is the only festival in Africa that is exclusively designed for children and youth, i.e. children and youth are the focus and not a side bar at a larger general or adults’ film festival. It is the only festival that is organised, presented and celebrated by children and youth who make films through the film production workshop, report on the festival through the children's press, present the programme through children's event presentation, and award prizes through the children's jury..

Who funds Lola Kenya Screen?

Lola Kenya Screen is looking for funding. The first and second editions in 2006 and 2007 were supported--not funded--by the Creator of Creativity, ComMattersKenya, ArtMatters.Info, ArtMatters Critics Guild, Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, Goethe-Institut, Danish Film Institute, and Prix Jeunesse.Lola Kenya SCreen also received support from Alliance Francaise in 2006.

How much does it cost to present Lola Kenya Screen?

A truckload of volunteerism and determination; If everything needed funding, it would cost an estimated $90,000 or 70,000 Euro in kind and human resource to put Lola Kenya Screen together. But are we getting anywhere near meeting this budget? Hardly. All the festival staff, from the director to the programme presenter, volunteer their service.

How many people attend the festival?

The second Lola Kenya Screen in 2007 grew by between 7.5% and 100% over the inaugural edition that attracted 4,000 people—2,500 children, 807 youth, and 510 adults—in 2006.

What major problems does Lola Kenya Screen face?

The greatest challenge is no doubt lack of funding. Without funding, Lola Kenya Screen cannot hire staff, bring in film directors, or present worthy awards to people whose audiovisual work excel at the festival.

Tell us something about Lola Kenya Screen’s membership in the International Centre of Film for Children and Young People, CIFEJ.

Operating on the African communal spirit of ‘I am because we are’, Lola Kenya Screen seeks out individuals and organizations who share our vision to achieve our aims. One such body is International CIFEJ. Through our membership in CIFEJ—an organisation founded in 1955 under the auspices of UNESCO and UNICEF to promote excellence in cinema for children and young people—our family network is expanded. And our credibility, too.

You hold annual production workshops and produce films from them. Last year you produced something, how was it received? What are some of the places you have screened them?

Lola Kenya Screen is not just another cultural film festival that showcases films made by others for our consumption. Rather, it is a production workshop, market, and film festival all rolled into one. During the inaugural film production workshop in 2006, Antonia Ringbom of Finland facilitated an animation workshop with 10 children aged 10-15 years. They made FILMS BY CHILDREN FOR CHILDREN, a nine-film compilation that has since been shown in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Berlin, Gdynia, Goree Island, Kampala and Nairobi. By the time the next workshop is held August 6-11, 2007 with Annemette Karpen and Maikki Kantola of Denmark, our production will have been screened in Kigali. It is also lined up for showing in France, Belgium, Brazil, The Netherlands, and Congo-Kinshasa.

How is a film workshop coordinated? During the screening or after?

The production workshop runs concurrently with the screening of films; 10am-4pm daily.

Tell us about Lola Kenya Screen winning the grand prize at the kids for kids African/5th World summit on Media for Children.

FILMS BY CHILDREN FOR CHILDREN beat 50 films from 20 African nations to the Grand Prize at the Kids for Kids Africa/ 5th World Summit on Media for Children in Johannesburg, South Africa, in March 2007. This win gave FILMS BY CHILDREN FOR CHILDREN a direct entry into the international Kids for Kids festival and free distribution worldwide by CIFEJ.

You aim to establish a resource centre. Tell us about it.

The envisaged Lola Kenya Screen film resource centre will be stocked with audiovisual information and equipment to benefit students, scholars, researchers, journalists and other seekers of information.

Lola Kenya Screen is the only film festival for children in eastern Africa. What is the future for such festivals entirely dedicated to children and the youth?

The future can only be bright for child-focused festivals like Lola Kenya Screen. Lola Kenya Screen is poised to become a reference point besides entrenching the filmmaking and consumption culture in Kenya and in eastern Africa.

Does Lola Kenya Screen incorporate the mobile cinema feature in its screenings?

This is included in our future projections. But we must start in our Jerusalem, Nairobi, before fanning out to Judea, Samaria and the entire world through mobile cinema.

Some critics have questioned the role of film festivals; some have said that film festivals compromise on matters of quality. What do you think of this?

Lola Kenya Screen is not just another run-of-the-mill festival but one that sets standards in quality. Our festival is run by professionals trained in film appreciation and criticism, filmmaking, and festival management. We take quality seriously and will not compromise for whatever reason. We may be just two years old but no festival in eastern Africa receives and showcases as many international films as we. We do not screen just about any film simply because it has been submitted to us. It has to meet our standards in terms of theme, cultural relevance and sensitivity and production standards. Try us.