Abstract
There are not many women film directors in Africa and even fewer in East Africa, but Anne Mungai is one of them. Her first full-Iength film is Saikati the story of a young girl who wants to become a doctor but whose uncle just wants her to marry and bring him some dowry. This theme of the young woman thwarted by established practice reflects Anne Mungai's abiding concern at the pressure placed on young girls and women to remain in traditional röles as homemaker and childbearer. She is concerned with what she refers to as the "image of the girl-child," and to challenge the intimidation of the "girlchild" right from her early years as she grows up in the company of her brothers, father, uncles and later her husband. She considers the "timidness and lack of assertiveness" which characterise women in her society to be a product of this culturally validated network of female dependency on males.