Photograph of a Kenyan woman
John Tyman, 1983, Nairobi, Kenya
Bomet Foundation collection

Bomet Foundation is a cultural initiative dedicated to preserving, studying, and circulating East African visual culture.

Working across archival research, exhibitions, publishing, and public programming, Bomet Foundation brings historical material into dialogue with contemporary artistic practice.

The foundation is building a digital archival library focusing on photography, printed matter, oral histories, architecture, design, and cultural memory from East Africa and its diasporas.

ARCHIVE: A growing digital library of East African cultural material.

EXHIBITIONS: Curated projects, collaborations, and presentations in Melbourne and internationally.

PUBLISHING: Printed and digital works developed through research, commissions, and archival inquiry.

PROGRAMS: Talks, screenings, workshops, and educational partnerships.

For partnerships, research enquiries, and general correspondence: info@bometfoundation.org

3rd July to 10th July

Kenyan Modernities:
Cinema and Social Critique

Cinema has played a critical role in shaping and contesting narratives of post-colonial Africa. In Kenya, filmmakers have used the medium to examine the social, political, and cultural transformations that have accompanied urbanisation, globalisation, and shifting ideas of identity and belonging.

Through stories grounded in everyday experience, Kenyan cinema offers a powerful lens through which to consider the aspirations, contradictions, and complexities of modern life.

Kenyan Modernities: Cinema and Social Critique brings together two landmark films that have helped define contemporary Kenyan cinema. Spanning themes of migration, class, youth culture, desire, and social change, these works explore how individuals navigate the structures that shape their lives while imagining alternative futures. Together, they reveal cinema's capacity not only to reflect society, but to question it.

Join us for two exclusive screenings at

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP
15 Bedford St, Collingwood VIC 3066

Free Events.

Screening: Nairobi Half Life (2012)
03.07.2026 - 7 pm

Directed by David ‘Tosh’ Gitonga

Widely regarded as one of the most significant films in Kenyan cinema, Nairobi Half Life follows Mwas, a young aspiring actor who leaves rural Kenya for Nairobi in search of opportunity. Drawn into the city's criminal underworld while pursuing his artistic ambitions, he confronts the precarious realities of life in a rapidly expanding metropolis.

Combining social realism with compelling narrative storytelling, the film examines migration, economic inequality, and the tension between aspiration and survival. Nairobi emerges not simply as a setting but as a protagonist in its own right: a city of promise and disenchantment, where dreams of modernity coexist with structures of exclusion and uncertainty.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with director David ‘Tosh’ Gitonga.

RSVP TO THE EVENT >
The gallery doors open at 6 pm, followed by the screening at 7 pm.

Screening: Rafiki (2018)
10.07.2026- 7 pm

Directed by Wanuri Kahiu

Adapted from Monica Arac de Nyeko’s short story Jambula Tree, Rafiki centres on Kena and Ziki, two young women whose friendship develops into a romantic relationship despite the social expectations and political rivalries that surround them.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of contemporary Nairobi, the film offers a portrait of youth, desire, and self-determination that departs from dominant representations of African life. Following its temporary ban in Kenya, Rafiki became a focal point for international discussions on censorship, artistic freedom, and LGBTQ+ representation, while also demonstrating the growing global visibility of Kenyan cinema.

Both intimate and political, the film asks how love, identity, and personal autonomy are negotiated within the constraints of community, tradition, and state power.

Through these screenings, audiences are invited to consider how contemporary Kenyan filmmakers engage with questions of modernity and social transformation. Together, Nairobi Half Life and Rafiki offer distinct yet complementary perspectives on the realities of contemporary Kenya and the possibilities of cinema as a form of cultural critique.

RSVP TO THE EVENT >
The gallery doors open at 6 pm, followed by the screening at 7 pm.