The Creature, a film by Kamau Wandung’u, won top prize of Ksh 200,000 in the recently concluded My Kenya My Story mobile phone film competition. The film Black Tax: Listed! by Derrick Waswa was the first runners up, winning Ksh 150,00, while Solo by Erick Kinungi was the second runners up and was awarded a cash prize of Ksh 100,000.

This year marked the fourth edition of the competition that was themed: Social and Economic Impact of COVID-19. Out of 138 submissions received, the Jury shortlisted 9 films that were uploaded on the Kenya Film Commission Youtube channel for viewing and voting by the public. The Jury comprised industry stakeholders namely: Eugene Mbugua (Executive Producer, Documentary & Reality TV), Gideon Mburugu (Executive Director, CDI Gadgets) and Carole Gikandi (Film Editor). Submissions were received from 17 Counties, an improvement from last year’s entries. The Counties are: Mombasa, Kajiado, Nakuru, West Pokot, Embu, Nairobi, Trans Nzoia, Samburu, Nyeri, Meru, Uasin Gishu, Kericho, Kisumu, Kiambu, Kakamega, Kisii and Kirinyaga.

Key observations from the Jury analysis reveal that the use of phone accessories and phone editing software has greatly improved from previous years and additionally, there has been notable improvement in the area of Production Design. The Jury also called on female filmmakers to actively participate in the next edition as it was noted that very ladies submitted projects in this edition.

The Jury highlighted Sheldon Mutei and Gift Kyansimire’s film Corona In Da Club that won Ksh 50,000 in the Special Mention Category due to the uniqueness in the use of stop motion as a filmmaking technique in animation.

Kenya Film Commission CEO, Mr. Timothy Owase, called on filmmakers to embrace smart phone filmmaking as a great tool for content creation. “From the submissions, we have seen professional filmmaking and as such, one does not require sophisticated equipment to tell their story in the best way possible”, noted the CEO.