Breakfast in Kisumu

  • Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell
  • United Kingdom, Kenya, South Africa
  • 2019
  • 37 min
  • International Premiere
  • IDFA Competition for Short Documentary

Rok Ajulu (1950-2016) was a leading Kenyan academic and activist who was involved in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. This short documentary is his daughter Rebecca’s tribute to her father. The film’s leitmotif is an intimate conversation between father and daughter that she recorded shortly before Ajulu discovered he was terminally ill. He talks about the many twists and turns in a life in which he fought for freedom, but found himself in prison or exile on many occasions. They cover his time as an activist student in 1970s Kenya, his studies in Bulgaria, his first academic position in England, and his close ties with South Africa.

Onscreen, his daughter extends the conversation by traveling to the locations he talks about. She and cameraman Ollie Bradley-Baker capture these places in impressionistic style and in a variety of formats, from grainy 16mm to pin-sharp digital footage. Along the way, we discover that her attempt to get to know the man who was only sporadically present in her life is also her way of sharing him with the world.

Credits

  • 37 min
  • color
  • DCP
  • Spoken languages: English
Director
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell
Production
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell for Coretta Productions
Executive producer
Raphael Laurent for NKG Ltd, Adrian Martin Stickel
Cinematography
Oliver Bradley-Baker
Editing
Mdhamiri Á Nkemi, Oliver Bradley-Baker, Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell

IDFA history

2019
International Premiere
IDFA Competition for Short Documentary

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IDFA history

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