USIU-Africa takes home top awards at the 7 Day Film Festival
Rachel Muthoni and Dr. Rachel Diang’a take a photo during the 7 day film festival. PHOTO: Courtesy
By Brenda Odhiambo and Dr. Rachael Diang’a
Two productions by USIU-Africa’s Cinematic Arts’ Department have won the top prizes during this year’s edition of the 7 Day Film Festival. Trauma, written and directed by Kevin Osoo won the Best Inspiring Short Film, Best Cinematography and Best Student Short Film, while Warped by Michelle Donde won the Judges’ Award. The win by Trauma made it the second time that USIU-Africa had won an award at the festival.
Both films tackled mental health awareness, with the theme derived from a surprise phrase that was shared with this year’s entrants. This year’s phrase was ‘it gets better with time’.
“The entire reason we made these films was to pass across the message of mental health and its impact to as many people as possible, and winning four awards from our 6 nominations means that we were able to achieve our objective,“ said Kevin and Michelle.
Trauma was the most nominated film at the festival, with nominations across 6 categories and wins in 3, which also made it the best performing film at the event.
The 7 Day Film Festival is a timed film competition which gives Kenyan filmmakers a platform to unlock their potential by pushing their limits to create a story within 7 days. Filmmakers are given a surprise brief and waived filming locations in Nakuru County.
The festival aims to develop the production of creative quality Kenyan local content in short films, music videos and documentaries.