About the film maker
Bettina Ng’weno is from Nairobi. She studied Agricultural Science and Management at the University of California, Davis and later Cultural Anthropology at Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University. She lives in California where she is a university professor and Kenya where she conducts research and makes films. The Time is Now is her first film.
For more information:Email,
Bettina Ng’weno (producer and director): – lastdanceinkaloleni@gmail.com
Our Goal
We seek to produce a professional internationally distributed film made in Kenya, which tells a uniquely Kenyan, and particularly Nairobi, story of identity and struggle. Set in 1959, LAST DANCE IN KALOLENI is a nuanced, full and rich portrait of a time whose impacts can still be felt today in the urban landscape of Nairobi. We would like the audience to take away the sounds, feeling, smells, tastes, heat, tensions, love, hopes and dreams of Nairobi of 1959, of that moment of great possibility and perhaps great loss at the birth of a new country.
Our Heritage
We want to tell this story because Nairobi of today is a rapidly changing city.
As the old city is brought down to make room for the new city, the historic African presence of Nairobi is disappearing. Forgotten in the process is the space of dreams centered in the world of labor, music and politics that created middle class Kenya and that built the city to what it is today. We are passionate about this story for its ability to bring back those times and those dreams that imagined life and the city yet to come. We embark on this film project to celebrate Nairobi.
