NBO Film Festival: Neil Sandoz’s “Open Your Eyes” Documentary Underscores The Reparative Effect of Grassroots Sports

With a population of over 250,000 people, Kibera, informally called Kibra, is undoubtedly the largest slum in the city of Nairobi, Kenya, and arguably the largest urban slum in Africa. The settlement emerged in 1918 as an abode for Nubian soldiers in a forest on the outskirts of Nairobi. The forest was originally given to the soldiers as compensation for their involvement in past wars. Much later, when the Kenyan government took over, it offered the lands as leases to slum landlords, appearing to absolve itself of further responsibility for infrastructural development in the neighbourhood. Since the 1970s, the slum landlords have continued to rent out properties in the region to an ever-growing number of residents, resulting in overcrowding and dismal living conditions. Considering its poverty rate, the region is home to out-of-school children, street urchins and disillusioned youths. It has bred and offered sanctuary to drug users, sex workers and criminals. However, amidst these letdowns, the development of local sports, particularly basketball, is assuaging feelings of hopelessness, offering opportunity and the dream of a better life to the youthful demographic. This redemptive reality is what Kenyan director Neil Sandoz and producer Tony Tei amplify in the basketball-themed feature-length documentary Open Your Eyes. 

Open Your Eyes captures the transformative potential of basketball through reflections on how the game reshapes local image, positively influences the trajectory of the youth, and ultimately contributes to community building. Set in Kibera, Kenya, the documentary follows a remote structure that addresses three crucial questions: What was life like for young people in Kibera before basketball was introduced? How has basketball affected the perception of the youth in the neighbourhood? What does the future hold for the reformed Kibera youth? Guided by these questions, director Sandoz leans into the unique but intersecting testimonies of the documentary subjects, mostly residents of Kibera, in what feels like a sequential arrangement. Beyond interviews, the filmmakers use footages and images of other pertinent events to contextualize the stories of the subjects.

In the first part of the documentary, subjects describe the circumstances of survival in Kibera at length. These subjects are mostly local basketball players, and they recall to varying degrees of clarity what their existence looked like prior to getting involved in basketball. They acknowledge that growing up in the infamous community means being stereotyped as badly behaved and uncouth by outsiders. One of their stories centers on a certain uber-talented high school mate derailed by his indulgence in substance abuse. Through early accounts like this that expose the sordid underpinnings of Kibera, the filmmaker lays the foundation for an emotional connection between the audience, Kibera and basketball as key points of the discourse.

A major highlight of Open Your Eyes is the recognition of CTM Kenya (Centre for Transforming Mission), a wing of the global Leadership Foundations network committed to identifying and empowering potential leaders and youth from marginalized urban communities. CTM Kenya came into existence in 2006, but began operations in Kibera in 2014, focusing on the use of sports programmes in engaging young people meaningfully. This started with the construction of basketball courts in the local schools, a move that ignited a wave and reshaped the minds of young people in Kibera, which became fodder for Sandoz’s documentary.

In his documentary, Sandoz offers a refreshing perspective on basketball in an African context that goes far beyond the superficial and almost euphoric excitement often associated with the global professional scene. Instead, he reshapes its image through an honest and grounded lens, presenting basketball as a source and symbol of hope, optimism, and youth empowerment in a society that is often burdened by a bleak and limiting reputation.

For the youth of Kibera, the documentary suggests that basketball becomes a pathway to dreams that might otherwise have seemed unattainable. One of the young men reinforces this idea by explaining how the sport helped him secure a scholarship to study at Zetech University, where he is pursuing a career in catering. Another player, a young Kenyan woman, also acknowledges her own transformation through the game as she explains that she benefited from the Basketball Without Borders programme.

Open Your Eyes, as its title implies, ultimately opens the eyes of the global audience to a small, often neglected Kenyan community, recognizing its harsh history and realities but also honoring its strength and proclivity for social development. It is an undiluted mirror of the changing dynamics of existence for the people, and also a reminder that gems can be discovered in unexpected places. 

Open Your Eyes premiered at the recent edition of the NBO Film Festival in October in Kenya.