’The Battle For Laikipia’: CPH: DOX Review

Dirs: Daphne Matziaraki, Peter Murimi. Kenya/US/Greece. 2024. 94mins

A devastating drought in East Africa coupled with rising political friction in the run-up to an election ignites the long-simmering tensions in Kenya’s Laikipia region. The Indigenous semi-nomadic pastoralists, members of the Samburu tribe, have freely grazed their cattle and goats on these fertile plains for millennia; the white Kenyan landowners, predominantly the descendants of the British settlers who arrived in the country at the beginning of the last century, guard their property with fences, threats and, with increasing frequency, guns. Filmed over five years, this tense, troubling film looks at the flashpoint intersection between the legacy of colonialism and the pressures of climate change.

A powerful picture, and an important one

The collaboration between Greek filmmaker and journalist Matziaraki, a Peabody Award-winner who was Oscar-nominated for her short film 4.1 Miles, and the multi-award-winning Kenyan documentary director and producer Murimi (I Am Samuel) is a fruitful one. The picture, edited with admirable sensitivity by Sam Soko (himself a director whose film Softie was a prizewinner in Sundance 2020) strikes a delicate balance, hearing out both sides of this heated question (although it’s fair to say that ultimately, the film – and, most likely, the audience – will side with the herders over the blustering ranchers).

It’s a powerful picture, and an important one. While this story unfolds in a very specific location, it’s a microcosm of a wider story that is only just beginning to play out. As the demand for resources depleted by climate change builds, competition for those resources is only going to grow more heated and highly charged. It should find a receptive audience at further festivals (it premiered at Sundance) and will particularly interest programmers and audiences at environmentally-themed events.

The herder’s way of life is so deeply ingrained that it is woven into the language of the Samburu pastoralists. The word for ‘life’, explains the affable, eloquent Simeon, is derived from the word for ‘cattle’. A family’s livestock is essential for its survival – providing milk, blood, broth and occasionally meat. The question of grazing rights is not just about access to the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Increasingly, as the drought lasts into its second year, it is about life or death.

Maria, a fourth-generation white rancher with a comparatively small 8,000-acre holding, is finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet. She complains to her son that they are running out of money, while fretfully flicking through the insurance documents that are yet to be paid. Tom, the CEO of a 52,000-acre private conservation enclosure, instructs his men to shoot the herder’s dogs on sight and chases a child with some goats off his land with threats of curses and death. His primary concern is that his moneyed Instagram-happy tourists are kept away from the police that are patrolling the less secure areas of his land. But even Tom, who comes across as quite the colonial throwback dinosaur, is protecting more than just his property – he is passionate about the conservation of the critically endangered species for which he has assumed responsibility.

The lack of rain takes its toll. The colour leeches out of the landscape as the equatorial sun turns its relentless glare on the land. The xylophone ribs of the cows stand out, the sheep struggle to stay on their feet. And Simeon’s ready smile starts to fade. Everywhere, anger builds, fanned on one side by the rhetoric of political candidate Mathew Lempurkel who argues that the land rightfully belongs to the Samburu people, and on the other by the ranchers who meet the theft of grass with excessive shows of muscle and violence.

Ultimately, there are no easy answers to the situation, only a temporary respite once the rains finally arrive. What becomes increasingly clear is that government intervention is needed to prevent further bloodshed. But a government vested in appeasing the powerful and the wealthy is unlikely to solve anything.