Paper short abstract:

The proposed study examines cinema narrators and their audiences in perfomance to explore their reconstruction of foreign worlds represented in the films. It is an ethnographic approach, focusing on two video-cinema audiences in Narok namely ‘Prince’ and ‘Hawaii City Cinema.’

Paper long abstract:

Cinema cultures in Kenya have been characterized by a dominantly informal set of distribution and exhibition characteristics, whose metaphoric representation has been the movie shops and informal cinema halls (Kirsten Kanja, 2021). Admittedly, the increasing influence of digital technologies has had a negative impact of the movie shops and cinema halls (Joseph Ochieng Umira, 2020). However, typical of the rhythm of life in informal neighbourhoods, cinema cultures have evolved and adapted. One of the emergent modes of adaptation has been the rise of cinema narration. Studies, such as James Ogone (2020) and Kimani and Mugubi (2014) have focused on what one could term as the theme of translation and interpretation of the foreign films. In the words of Ogone “the commentator interprets the movie using local equivalents to enhance comprehension.” It has been argued that the process of translation is also artistic, and one way to attract and retain audiences in the informal exhibition spaces (Matthias Krings, 2013). A study of the commentator’s art and audience reception is thus important. The proposed study engages with cinema narration as a collaborative project in which the cinema narrator and his audience reconstruct and engage with foreign worlds, and the master narrative played plays out in the context of other narratives both in the spectatorship experience and also in audience’s extended commentaries. The study uses an ethnographic approach, focusing on video-cinema audiences in the Majengo neighbourhood of Narok. It focuses on two video-halls namely ‘Prince’ and ‘Hawaii City Cinema.’