Kenyan film 'Blurred' nominated for international short film competition

Kenyan short film 'Blurred' has been nominated for an international short film competition, MY RODE REEL 2020.

The short film stars award-winning Kenyan actress Brenda Wairimu who has dominated the film industry in Kenya for years now.

Speaking exclusively to the producer and scriptwriter Safina Iqbal, she explained what the short film is all about, sighting that the whole point of shooting the film was to bring out a moral dilemma.

"Blurred is a project between myself and Brian Obra, who is the director, and what we wanted to pose is a moral dilemma on what can you really do for your family but then it's a moral dilemma because Blurred is someone choosing between the brother and father," Safina said.

She went on to explain the concept behind Blurred and how blood was also part of it.

"We wanted to make a film that makes you ask the question of how far can you go for blood. Why we call it Blurred is one its a pan for blood and two it's for blurr because you can't see clearly. If you watch the film, the moral dilemma makes you not see clearly that's why we called it Blurred," she explained.

So how did it come about?

"It came about because we saw the competition and wanted to push ourselves more and do something that has not been done in Kenya before. The original idea, you know when you mourn you have denial, anger, that was our baseline thought. As we went on we decided to make Blurred a film that makes you go through happiness, conflict then resolution."

As for the process of creating the short film, Safina said that they shot it for over 24 hours even though it is a three-minute film.

"We wanted Blurred to be a one-take film where we don't look at it but we had to change that on the morning of the shoot because of equipment we needed for that; if you watched the film you'll think it's a one-take but we made the decision not to make it a one take because we didn't have the equipment we needed.

"We shot from 11 am, we didn't sleep till 6 am the next day so it took us just over 24hours to shoot. It is a three-minute film but it took that long," she said.

In the film, one can see Brenda holding a heart and Safina explained that they had to hunt for a heart in different slaughterhouses because they wanted it to look real.

"We had special effects makeup and had to find a heart for the scene so it involved a lot of slaughterhouse visits to find a heart that looks like a heart and we decided to use an actual heart just so that you have the realness of what we are trying to communicate but all in all it was a fun process.

She also mentioned that the making of the film was a labor of love because they had a limited number of people.

"It was draining because if you are doing a labor of love you want to make sure everything goes great and since we were a limited number of people, we had to double up a lot but the process was wonderful, especially if you have someone like Brenda on set who is a one-take actress and she's really good and she made our work way easier."

Brenda being an actress who has been on our screens for years, one would wonder how it is working with her.

Well, Safina had nothing but praises for Brenda stating that she's very hardworking and professional and she takes her work seriously.

"You wouldn't even know she's a celebrated actress. She is the most professional person I have ever met. Her work ethic is great, she shows up to set on time and what I think stood out for me the most is how she kept in character the whole time.

"We would be laughing in the living room but she's in her room getting into character. Even when she was doing makeup, she was practicing. She's an artist who takes her work very seriously and that was something very beautiful to watch."

Safina added that Brenda is meticulous and knows her lines and delivers and working with her was absolutely amazing adding, "her humility is one of her strongest virtues."

On working with Brenda in other projects, the producer said she would definitely want to work with the actress again because, "She's one of those people who are very versatile, her range is amazing, I mean who wouldn't want to work with Brenda.

"She's very good at her work and she's not just a celebrity. when you watch her work you'll definitely understand why she's so good at what she does."

Safina went ahead to explain 'Blurred' being nominated for Rode Reel, an international short film competition, stating that they are optimistic that they will win.

"My Rode Reel is an international short film competition. We have behind the scenes which predominantly judges choose for themselves then we have people's choice where Blurred was entered and here you need votes to go through.

"We are very excited we are on the platform because that's a big thing for us but currently, we are going through the voting process on October 21 then we will know our fate.

She also said that, if they win, they might consider making it a full film.

"In terms of Blurred, we want to push it even past Rode Reel and interestingly people have been watching it and they are like make it a full film. If we do win and we really hope we do, we might consider making a full film because full films need a better budget. We are optimistic," she said.

Here's the short film;