The makers of Oscar-nominated movie Watu Wote, Germany’s Hamburg Media School, are not happy with the self-proclaimed ‘moral police’ and Kenya Film Classification Board CEO Ezekiel Mutua.
This is after Dr Mutua allegedly screened the film in the US without their permission.
COPYRIGHT
The school says it was forced to issue a statement after movie lovers enquired when the film would be available in the public domain.
“After a lot of people asking on social media and in public domain, we are forced to issue the following statement, related to the screening of Watu Wote on March 8 sponsored by Ezekiel Mutua and KFCB in Las Vegas,” the school tweeted using Watu Wote handle and attached a statement.
“As the owners of all copyrights for Watu Wote, we want to point out very clear(ly) that KFCB and Dr Mutua had no rights to so, this screening was an illegal act and a copyright infringement,” the statement reads in part.
Hamburg Media School said it holds all copyrights for the film and the rights to exhibit it privately or in public.
“For distribution in all American territories, Shorts International, an entity of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars), hold the privileges.”
SILENT
The school added that Dr Mutua neither attended the Oscars nor participated in anything as he has been claiming on social media.
“Contrary to these claims, Dr Mutua was not in attendance at the ceremony, and did not participate in the Oscars with us,” the school says.
“He never received an invitation and never was (he) asked to join us. This was an extraordinary privilege for our cast and crew members.”
The school has so far written a letter to the head of civil service and copied it to KFCB and the relevant ministries.
Dr Mutua, who is always quick to praise his work on Twitter, has so far been silent on the matter.
The Nation’s phone calls to him went unanswered.
In 2017, the ‘moral police’ faced criticism for joyriding to France for the prestigious 70th Cannes Film Festival.
The claims were made by two main actors of a Kenyan film that was picked to be screened at the festival.
WATU WOTE
The two, Joyce Maina and Brian Ogola, who starred in the short film Neophobia, also blamed him of joyriding to the event yet his board had contributed nothing to the project.
Watu Wote movie is based on a true story: The events of December 21, 2015, where Al-Shabaab militants attacked a bus en route to Mandera from Nairobi.
This attack was not the first of its kind.
Al-Shabaab militants had been on the rampage with up to 60 separate incidents between 2011 and 2014.
They used grenades, bombings, gun killings, and suicide bombings, the most prominent being the attack at Westgate Mall on September 21, 2013.
In some cases, their modus operandi was to separate Christians and Muslims and kill the Christian passengers.
Often, they would ask passengers to recite verses from the Holy Quran so as to make sure that Christians did not pretend to be Muslim.