Stories of Our Lives is an anthology of five short films with LGBT themes from the East African republic of Kenya. It was made by the Nairobi-based art and activist group The Nest Collective, many of whose members prefer to conceal their identities to avoid possible persecution under Kenya’s notoriously draconian anti-gay laws. The film is still banned in it some country. The five dramas are mostly personal and domestic inspired by true incidents. ASK ME NICELY Kate, a rebellious young high school girl, meets first-love Faith, a fellow student. They begin a secret relationship, until the school principal takes action to separate the two by suspending Kate from the school. Back at home, Kate impulsively has a sexual encounter with a boy in her neighborhood. Two weeks later, Kate and Faith have an awkward reunion leading to their separation. RUN After negotiating a business deal, Patrick stumbles upon a local gay bar with his homophobic best friend, Kama. Patrick later returns to the clu...
Gandhi, an ex-boxer and a communist works in some sort of factory. He always stands up for his friends and colleagues and is well respected. His girlfriend Maria works in the same factory in the canteen. One evening when walking back home, he sees a young man Claudio being beaten up. Gandhi saves him and brings back home only to later find put that he is gay. For some reason he feels like hiding this event from his colleagues, from Maria and most importantly from the most and drunken building concierge. Caludio helps , goes back to work where his workplace is burned down by the racists again. Gandhi decides to bring him to his home to stay for a few days. By now Maria and colleagues find out about this and they start wondering if Gandhi has become gay. They somehow get him strip to Russia, so he is away from Claudio and maybe get fixed. When he comes back, his apartment is redone and soon there is silly fight between Claudio and Maria on who loves Gandhi. It's clear that Claudio is just fooling around but Gandhi is still very much in love with Maria. A few more misunderstandings later, the film ends with a happy ending for everyone.
There were many nice things about the character of Gandhi that I appreciated. Firstly, even after he finds out Claudio is gay, he makes a normal fuss like not sleeping in the same bed as him and all that, but besides that he never felt the need to justify his friendship to him to anyone. Not once, he tries to explain this to anyone, because IMO it is none of anyone's business. But at the same time, I did question his need to hide his friendship, at least from Maria. But hey, at least as audience, we do get to see some silly funny moments where this misunderstanding creates some funny quirky situations. The film overall doesn't make any statement or anything towards gays or in support of them. It shows a story of friendship between a straight man a gay guy and how even that can be healthy if the two men are confident of themselves. Actors playing Gandhi, Claudio and Maria are all extremely good and fantastic and I had overall a very good time watching the film. My expectations were pretty low and I think overall the film doesn't disappoint. (6/10)
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