Throughout human history and across cultures, the institution of marriage has almost always been a means by which property is carefully controlled (usually by men). Amongst royals and the nobility, such title transfers might involve vast estates, territories, or even entire countries. In poorer communities, the acreage may be smaller, yet the stakes are no less high for those involved.
In the new documentary Widow Champion, from director Zippy Kimundu, Our Land, Our Freedom), we discover just how fraught this issue can be. The time is now (starting in 2019) and the place is modern-day, rural Kenya. Our vehicle into this intense, real-life drama of inheritance and dispossession is Rodah Nafula Wekesa, a widow who years ago learned that no one was going to fight her battles for her. Now she helps others with what she has learned.
Much as in the 2024 Zambian fiction film On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, tribalism and patriarchy are the twin issues behind the ejection of widows from their homes. When a husband dies without a will, and the title to the land is strictly in his name, the traditions strongly favor the children and other blood relatives, especially if the wife comes from a different region. Send her back home! These assets are ours, and ours alone.
Over the course of the film, we watch Rodah do her work, arranging mediations between recalcitrant relatives and the local council of elders. The most fascinating part of the viewing experience is seeing how these conversations unfold. The dead husband’s brother (sometimes accompanied by his wife) expresses how much he dislikes the widow, who in turn accuses the man of always hating her for no reason. And yet despite the nasty words, they sometimes come to an agreement. The human animal proves endlessly intriguing.
Speaking of inheritance, one unfortunate bequest to some of the widows is an HIV infection (which Rodah lives with to this day). A frequent condition of being allowed to stay on the family grounds is that the woman become a second wife to the primary male owner (even if that ownership is contested). Some say yes, others no. Not surprisingly, sex can lead to the spread of disease. Or they may have contracted something from their deceased spouse.
Although there is plenty of unhappiness on display, the narrative trajectory is towards joy and a kind of triumph, our protagonists achieving overall positive results. Cinematically, however, the movie can be a bit of a jumble, with rough transitions through time and confusing legal details never fully explained. The powerful themes and outcomes mostly make up for it, though. These widows are most definitely champions.
Christopher Llewellyn Reed
Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.