When Kaleche (Nyokabi Gethaiga), a young amnesiac, wakes up in the middle of the wilderness, she has no idea how 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 (Elsaphan Njora). As Kaleche strikes up a quick and intense friendship with him, she discovers that there’s a lot more to Thoma and the mysterious Kati Kati.
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.
Kati Kati is the fifth film by One Fine Day, the Kenyan production company co-founded by German director Tom Twyker (Run Lola Run, Perfume). Previous One Fine Day films include Soul Boy (Audience Award, Rotterdam International Film Festival) and Nairobi Half Life (Audience Award, AFI Fest).
Masya made his name as one-third of the cult Kenyan group Just A Band, while his music videos have been featured everywhere from The New York Times to Fader to Huffington Post. Kati Kati is his first film.
