THE STORY – As a Nairobi journalist probes a land battle entangling a powerful multinational corporation and disposed native land owners, covered wounds are revealed and family secrets are exposed.
THE CAST – N/A
THE TEAM – Andrew H. Brown & Bea Wangondu (Directors)
THE RUNNING TIME – 96 Minutes
The highlands near Mount Kenya are some of the most fertile in Africa, with some of the most stunning views in the world. For millennia, the Kikuyu people have called the region home. Numbering in the millions, they have navigated the challenges of colonial rule and the changing political landscape while maintaining deep roots in the land of their ancestors. Yet the challenges, both local and international, mean that their struggles for equity and justice are far from over.
This complex yet resonant struggle for land ownership is central to the documentary “Kikuyu Land,” which had its world premiere at Sundance 2026. Co-directed by humanitarian-turned-filmmaker Andrew H. Brown and Nairobi-based journalist Bea Wangondu, the film provides a rich overview of the circumstances of several characters from the region. There’s the elder who had documentary proof of his land claims, treating the return as a kind of engineering exercise and working under the assumption that rationality will prevail when the facts are exposed.
There are young kids who daily navigate the long walk to school, as well as the time spent in the fields picking tea leaves under the eyes of the “managers,” who cajole the young people and the mostly female pickers as they fill their backpacks with tea leaves. The region is dotted with numerous plantations, almost all of which have tangled connections to multinational corporations such as Unilever, a vestige of the colonial past remasked as a globalized supply chain that feeds the world’s shelves with produce from this most prolific region.
Wangondu’s own past becomes central to the story, as her investigation into her grandfather’s role as an enforcer of certain practices leads to admonishment from her uncles and other family members. The film is best when it broadly articulates these complexities, showing that far more than an insider/outsider dynamic is at play in the more insidious aspects that shape how Kenyan politics and economics unfold.
The election of the charismatic William Ruto is tied to the complexities of the local situation. A former Minister of Agriculture, Ruto, has been accused of “land grabs” himself, making the process for members of the Kikuyu community even more challenging as the government shifted its focus away from restitution and towards processes not far removed from the colonial actions of generations before.
The film provides no solid answers, of course, and the sense of optimism of some who adhere to half-broken systems to receive justice feels, at times, almost naïve. Yet the chaos of the alternative would be nihilistic, just as Wangondu’s own past cannot simply be seen as a fixed guide to future actions. While the wounds of a colonial past continue to fester, there are plenty of endemic issues the film touched on that require even more robust homegrown solutions, sparked by community members refusing to be defeated.
As an introduction to the complex situation, the film does a decent job, even if the scope of the challenges overwhelms the narrowly focused areas of investigation. The challenge of confronting one’s own past and its sense of inherited culpability is a fascinating one, and worthy of deeper exploration, given that these systems of exploitation only operate when the likes of managers, land grabbers, and others in power continue the process of domination and abuse.
“Kikuyu Land” showcases a place and people of great beauty and great tragedy, and the documentary thrives when it provides witness to these paradoxical elements. Unfortunately, many of its critiques refuse to truly engage with the political circumstances, often coming across as toothless. Yet, seen as the beginning of a conversation and an introduction to an international audience about the plight of this community, the film does an admirable job of at least starting a difficult, vital conversation.
