Screening the Karim documentary

Screened the Karim documentary yesterday at the local film school.

First public screening for me. In India, for an audience of young students that prefers Hindi as their medium of instruction. And have no clue on Kenya or cricket or the Indians in Kenya (OK, now they've seen MUIGWITHANIA, so they know a bit about Indians in Kenya).

Screening off a laptop with poor sound and uneven video projection.

I was pretty convinced it wouldn't be appreciated at all.

Luckily, the documentary holds itself pretty well. Despite the obvious lack of visuals.

So a big relief to have the screening go off well. A question and answer session followed, I commented and told stories, much more than the questions that were asked.

I don't know about others, but these first screenings are big events to a filmmaker like me- where the work cuts across culture and information zones a lot. Having screened my work in Kenya and India a bit now, the cultural differences in audience reactions are quite a bit.

Having said that, the underlying humanity of the characters and events always comes across quite strongly.

Which is a relief, that's what we hope and live for as filmmakers.