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JUA KALI

JUA KALI - FEATURE

By Joash OMONDI

OKADA MEDIA DISTRIBUTION - as DISTR Theatrical, TV, DVD-video, VOD, Airline, World / PROD / FIN

Drama - Development 2024

In Nairobi, a housekeeper carries a burdensome secret while navigating the interconnected web of the city's informal working class.

- Year of production
- 2024
- Genres
- Drama, First film, Social issues
- Countries
- KENYA
- Director(s)
- Joash OMONDI
- Producer(s)
- Yasmin HASSAN (Wheelbarrow Films)
- Synopsis
- Diana, a single mother and housekeeper prepares
  breakfast for her young son. However, she adds
  alcohol to his meal to ensure he falls asleep while
  she goes to work. She takes with her two mobile
  phones, one of which will continue to ring
  throughout the day. Diana visits various homes,
  diligently cleaning up the messes left behind.
  She encounters Odhis, a client who has shown
  her kindness in the past by lending her money to
  escape an abusive relationship. However, her
  feelings for Odhis are challenged when she
  discovers him in a compromising situation with a
  female companion. Diana's travels take her to the
  upscale home of Lucy, a pregnant expatriate from
  Britain.
  In a moment of respite, Diana surreptitiously
  plunges into Lucy's pool, finding solace in the
  familiar waters that evoke memories of her
  upbringing on the shores of Lake Victoria. Later,
  Lucy, offers Diana a permanent position and living
  quarters. She however confronts Lucy about her
  family's nomadic tendencies and the trail of
  housekeepers left behind every time they move
  to a new country.
  Throughout the afternoon as Diana navigates the
  city traffic, we encounter snapshots of other
  workers toiling in the day’s heat. When she arrives
  back at her neighbourhood, Diana stops by a
  vegetable shop where a chilling conversation with
  the seller reveals that Diana is pregnant and the
  woman selling her vegetables is to perform her
  abortion. Diana hands over her day’s earnings to
  the woman in a brown envelope, and even though
  she is short by a significant sum, the abortionist is
  willing to be patient.
  Diana returns to her house. She enters her
  darkened home to find her son playing alone.
  Unable to ignore it any longer, finally picks up the
  call she's been avoiding all day. On the other end,
  her mother, living with Diana's siblings in their rural
  home, launches into a verbal assault, berating
  Diana for her decision to split up with her husband.
  With familial obligations, single motherhood, and
  an impending abortion weighing on her, Diana
  must weigh her next steps very carefully.
- Partners & financing
- Wheelbarrow Films
  Okada Media
  Sons of Lumière
  Ape & Bjørn
- Beginning of shooting
- Feb 05, 2024
- End of shooting
- Apr 05, 2024