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.
