The Letter

Carte blanche – Mandisa Zitta

When Karisa’s grandmother is accused of witchcraft, he travels from Mombasa to her rural home to find out who’s behind it. It turns out that the threatening letter his grandmother received came from a member of his own family.

In 2013, we set out to research the story of the female freedom-fighter Mekatilili, an elderly priestess from the coast of Kenya who led an armed uprising against the British in 1913. Fighting the confiscation of traditionally-owned land by the colonialists, Mekatilili was eventually imprisoned and persecuted as a witch. As we spoke with many elders about this oral history, we were saddened to hear of violence happening now against the elderly in the area, due to an outbreak of witchcraft accusations. With local press reporting more than 10 murders every month, these accusations were said to be used as a cover-up for hundreds of family disputes over land, inheritance and religion. Many elders have been displaced, others killed, and many more threatened with anonymous letters. With regular press reports going largely unnoticed in the 24-hour news-cycle, we felt an urgency to share this story through a character-led, feature documentary, to help instigate some important conversations. While a range of grassroots projects and government initiatives are supporting displaced elders, we felt the need for a better psycho-spiritual understanding of what was causing these families to turn on themselves. We saw the killings as a modern manifestation of the violent colonial past in the area, worsened over time by a disconnected post-independent government, rising evangelism and cut-throat capitalism.

(Maia Lekow, Christopher King, press kit)