When Kaleche wakes up in the middle of the wilderness, she has no idea how or why she got there. She makes her way to Kati Kati, a nearby lodge, where she meets a motley crew of residents under the leadership of Thoma. As Kaleche strikes up a quick and intense friendship with him, she discovers that the functional alcoholic is a very special guy at a mysterious place: Kati Kati is inhabited by the souls of dead people waiting for redemption… 

At Toronto International Film Festival, the Kenyan film won the Prize of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) for the Discovery program. The FIPRESCI jury called Masya “an exciting and unique new voice in cinema” and praised Kati Kati’s “generous and poetic tone, not without a degree of anger at personal and political injustice.”

Reviewing Kati Kati at AFI, The Playlist hailed it as “vibrant and exciting… A condensed version of Lost… A small movie about big ideas… Plays like an act of discovery… An original, vibrant and exciting statement from a talented filmmaker who clearly has much more to say.”

Having been screened at over 40 festivals globally, Kati Kati was named Best East African Film at the 2017 Africa Movie Viewers Choice Awards and also won the New Voices/New Visions Award Special Mention at the Palm Springs International Festival; the Filmpris at the CinemAfrica Film Festival in Stockholm; and the Emerging Filmmaker Award at the 2017 Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival.

For educational inquiries, please visit our educational site. 

Writer & Director: Mbithi Masya
Cast: Nyokabi Gethaiga, Elsaphan Njora, Paul Ogola a.o.
Year: 2016
Duration: 65 minutes
Language: Swahili and English with English subtitles