my creative life

Writing, film, art, institution-building — I have never seen these as separate pursuits. They are all, at their root, the same act: making space for stories that might otherwise go untold. This section is as much a commitment to myself as it is an introduction to you — a promise to keep creating, keep sharing, and keep showing up at the page, the canvas, and the camera.

my films

I came to filmmaking sideways — through advertising, through storytelling, through an instinct that the African continent was producing extraordinary lives that deserved to be seen on screen. Click the links below to explore some of my work — some as trailers, some as full films.

Dangerous Affair (2002) — Debut feature, co-written with the late and great Njeri Karago, credited with helping launch a wave of contemporary East African cinema
Coming of Age (2008) — Short documentary; won Best Documentary at the 2009 Africa Movie Academy Awards
Killer Necklace (2009) — Mid-length fiction film, part of the M-Net New Directions cohort, produced by Appie Matere
Something Necessary (2013) — Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival; also screened at Locarno, Chicago International Film Festival, and others
Scarred: The Anatomy of a Massacre (2015) — Four years in the making, piecing together first-hand accounts of the 1984 Wagalla atrocity, one of Kenya’s darkest and most suppressed chapters
GOAT (2025) — A return to directing after a decade away; currently on the festival circuit

my art

I’ve always drawn. It’s not unusual to find me with a sketchpad or painting with acrylics on canvas — but over the years I’ve noticed my ability to draw becoming less and less spontaneous. Dedicating this tab to my visual work is partly a creative archive and partly a public commitment: to keep making things with my hands, across different surfaces and different materials.

my writing

Writing is where it all began — long childhood stories accompanied by little illustrations. I was a founding contributor to Kwani?, Kenya’s first revived literary journal, at a moment when a new generation of African writers was finding its voice and demanding to be read. I’ve always enjoyed writing in every form — short stories, poems, the social media post that quietly becomes an essay. These days I find my writing life narrowing to screenplays, written slowly over long periods. This tab is a commitment to write more freely and more often — and perhaps to begin sharing some of it on Substack.