Kisilu: The Climate Diaries is an upcoming Al Jazeera documentary about how climate change is affecting a small farming family in Mutomo, Kenya.
Over the last four years, Kisilu Musya, a Kenyan smallholder farmer, has used his camera to capture the life of his family, his village and the impacts of climate change. Over the years he has filmed floods, droughts, and storms but also the more human impacts of climate change – kids are sent home from school when school fees can’t be paid; men are moving to towns in search for jobs; and
family relations are strained.
Through seamless intercutting of Kisilu’s video diaries and director Julia Dahl’s footage, the film creates a raw and honest portrait of family life in rural Kenya at the frontline of climate change.
Kisilu and his wife Christina live together with their nine children. They have been self-reliant and surviving off the land for generations, but now they are facing harder times due to more and more extreme weather conditions.
The documentary is an inspiring portrait of a man who refuses to give up, who continues to drive long-term change in a community fighting for day-to-day survival. This year Kisilu and his community received government funding to set up an irrigation system. This December Kisilu will be attending the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.
Director Julia Dahl won the 2015 One World Media Student Award for an earlier, short version of this documentary, which also won five other international awards and is nominated for the Grierson Award.
Kisilu: The Climate Diaries premieres on Wednesday, 2 December 2015 at 20h00 GMT on Witness, Al Jazeera’s observational documentary strand, with repeats on Thursday 3 December at 1200, Friday 4 December at 0100, and Saturday, 5 December at 0600 GMT.
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