TKenya’s Laikipia Plateau is a wildlife conservation paradise and a popular safari destination featuring all of Africa’s Big Five. Until now, a simmering local conflict between indigenous pastoralist communities and long-established white farmers has remained largely unnoticed by the international community. But The Battle for Laikipia, shot by two experienced filmmakers – award-winning Kenyan documentary filmmaker Peter Murimi and Daphne Matziaraki, a Greek director with an Oscar-nominated short film – walks a tightrope to show the delicate balance in a conflict that has become have become increasingly violent in recent years due to the climate crisis.
“During the production of the film, we were surprised by the fact that the people who share the same landscape barely knew each other and did not truly understand each other,” says Matziaraki. “Lack of empathy, fear and sometimes refusal to recognize the historical context are the reasons why this conflict has reached this point. Climate change is bringing to light issues that have been buried under the carpet for decades.”
In his search for strong characters, Murimi says Laikipia residents were initially suspicious of his motives. “When someone hears that you are also talking to the enemy, it creates a lot of problems,” he says. Local nomadic communities used the ancient herding routes in Laikipia for centuries, but after white farmers gained access to large tracts of land in the early 20th century, the two groups came into conflict.
The climate crisis has increased the risks, with pastoralists – increasingly desperate for grass for their livestock – forced to live on land owned by white farmers for generations. The landowners, who also depend on Laikipia to support their livestock, are seen in the documentary struggling to convince the herders that they are also Kenyans and that Kenya is the country they have known all their lives.
Matziaraki came up with the idea for the film while living in Kenya, around 20 years ago, when he was interning at UNEP. She says she knew from the beginning that she couldn’t make the film alone, so she approached Murimi to become her co-director. The first scene she filmed, in 2017, shows Maria Dodds, a strong character in the film, having tea with a guest when they suddenly hear gunshots on her farm.
“It was a constant challenge to film with both sides of the conflict, remain neutral and continue to nurture trust and intimacy while maintaining ethical boundaries,” says Matziaraki. “We saw people afraid, breaking down, angry, questioning themselves and reconciling themselves.”
The film’s main protagonists are Simeon, a Samburu cattle herder, and three nearby white landowners. Simeon, who speaks Samburu, often spends time with his family in humble surroundings. In Samburu, “nkishon” means life and comes from the word “ngishu”, which means cattle. “For us, cattle are life,” says Simeon in the film. “We live off what our cows provide us: milk, broth, blood and sometimes meat. When a Samburu is born, a cow is gifted. And when we die, we are buried in cow skins.”
The pastoralists’ lifestyle contrasts with that of white farmers, who speak English and Swahili and live in more privileged families. A scene early in the film shows a farmer on his farm warning a young black shepherd to get off his property. Some farmers have used electric fences to keep herders out, but many accept that it is difficult to control vast areas of land. “The farm… actually goes back before our father, our grandfather and our great-grandfather. You feel like you’re part of the whole puzzle,” explains Dodds. The film shows Dodd’s funeral following his death from cancer in 2021.
The complicated legacy of British colonialism remains unresolved in Kenya, with the government reluctant to find a solution. Kenya’s independence in 1963 did little to change this situation, with land ownership remaining unchanged for generations. Television news shows the latest episodes of violence, with pastors often referred to as “bandits”. “Being a semi-nomad shouldn’t be a crime,” says Simeon at the end of the film. Violence is evident on both sides. A shepherd is found dead; farmers find their offices raided.
Filming began in 2017 and lasted five years – a drought cycle lasted three years during this period and making the film was a difficult task, logistically. “It’s very remote, it’s very sparse and sometimes you have to walk long distances; you have to sleep on the floor, on goat or cow skin. But I found it very rewarding to have the opportunity”, says Murimi. His previous film was the 2020 documentary I Am Samuel, about a gay man and his boyfriend.
Murimi says the biggest obstacle in filming was “our unconscious bias.” “Sometimes this unconscious bias affects your work. In fact, when we were making this film, we had to challenge each other. And I found it to be a very rewarding process.”
“We also discover a lot about ourselves because sometimes you have these world views and you think this is the only way the world works,” he says. “I think the beauty of this project is that it challenges these perceptions that people have, and sometimes you have to see the other side to find out. The world is much broader than our ideas. So I think that was the biggest challenge because we had to face reality and sometimes accept that we were wrong.”
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