Filmmaker Cynthia Abdallah has announced plans to unveil her one of a kind documentary titled Inyumba yu Mulogooli. According to Cynthia, the aim of the documentary is to educate and to preserve stories from the Maragoli community and to create dialogue about the origins of local communities.
She added, “The project was inspired by the incessant tales from my grandfather. His knowledge of Muraguri (Mulogooli) and his insistence that this story be told so that the future Maragoli generation can understand how they came to be, and who they really are. Their journey, their customs, their traditions. His belief in the timelessness of the story and his cultural efforts within the cultural society in Vihiga county.”
The documentary is told in the local language, Kilogooli (Lulogooli), as it brings together the Maragoli community and sparks debate about Mzee Lubang’a s account. To watch the documentary, viewers will be required to pay Ksh. 100 to access it on Sharaha Videos.
Ms. Abdallah notes, “We have watched numerous other documentaries on other tribes in Kenya. But we are yet to see one that explores this particular community. Preserving our indigenous languages is key and this documentary does exactly that. It is also the first of its kind to speak about who we are as people, where we come from and where we are headed. Other documentaries tend to generalise the luhya community. The second largest tribe in Kenya. This one singles out the second largest luhya sub tribe and delves deeper into its culture.”
When asked about the challenges faced while making the documentary, Ms Abdallah explained, “Translating kilogooli (Lulogooli) into English has been the most challenging part. We have spent almost three months ensuring that this is done to a good standard as we would like to create credible translations for the rest of the listening tribes in Kenya. Our viewers should be able to understand the story with the meaningful translations that will be provided and simple voiceovers.”
Adding, “Another challenge would be the travel and weather conditions. It took the crew a few hours to access the burial site of Mulogooli. It was also quite rainy during this period but the crew managed to overcome this.”
Despite the challenges, Ms Abdallah pointed out that the greatest highlight of producing the documentary was “the journey to the villages. The interactions with the elders and the immersion into the Maragoli way of doing things. Many members of my crew are not Luhya. So traversing the plains into unknown territory was not only exciting but also eye-opening.”