Kibera Kid is a short film set in the Kibera slums in Nairobi, Kenya. It was written, directed and co-produced by Nathan Collett in collaboration with the locals of Kibera.
This twelve-minute film featured Kibera actors in the principal roles. It has played at film festivals worldwide including the Berlin Film Festival and it won a Student EMMY from Hollywood. It has been profiled by the BBC, Reuters and Al Jazeera English. In April 2009, a feature film follow up to Kibera Kid was shot. The full length film focuses on tribal conflict and the possibility of reconciliation. The film had a larger effect as it led to the formation of Hot Sun Foundation which trains the youth of the slums to make their own films.
Plot
Kibera Kid is the story of Otieno, a 12-year-old orphan from Kibera living with a gang of thieves who must make a choice between gang life and redemption. The story is fiction but the circumstances and reality depicted are not. Crime and poverty are common in Kibera, yet there are many who will stand for a better life no matter how bad things may seem.