Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares: ‘Gentrification is hard to dramatise’

Old pals and creative collaborators Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares team up to present their vision of a near future where London's last social housing estate stands up against the oppressive regime.

Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares make their feature film debut with The Kitchen, a dystopian drama that follows Izi (Kane Robinson) whose focus is on getting out of the Kitchen, the last surviving social housing estate in the now totally sterile capital of London.

LWLies: Community versus individualism is a theme I really connected within the film. How did you decide to explore that through a father/son story?

Kaluuya: I feel like a lot of the villains of the community are the parents who don’t tend to their kids. And this is the archetype that is most prevalent in our community, the father that is absent. That’s the individualism [versus] community in a familial sense, me versus family. While we’re exploring the real human story, then we got more of the plot that’s about this community that is trying to fight for their togetherness. You got this man that doesn’t want to be together with anyone. He needs it. He doesn’t want it.

Could you talk about how you built out the world of The Kitchen as well as the estate itself?

Tavares: Robots of Brixton [animated short film] was part of my architecture degree and The Kitchen started not too long after, so my way into films at the time was as a designer. I started to build this aesthetic of collage; I was really keen to sort of see how I could do that in a longer format. I guess for me London’s a bit like lots of little villages stuck next to each other. And I guess in our world, all these villages have been pushed out to the end, and The Kitchen is London’s last village. The idea was to try and make something that feels recognisable, even though the aesthetic is very different. But how do we do that in a language that is a mixture of digital as well as physical?

How did Ian Wright get involved? His role is reminiscent of Samuel L Jackson’s in Do the Right Thing.

Kaluuya: He added so much depth to the role. He was receptive. He wasn’t ‘wrong and strong’; he was like, ‘Teach me, I want to learn.’ And he went in two footed – pun intended.

I think we was really inspired by Do the Right Thing actually, and inspired by La Haine, and inspired by City of God, a lot of
these seminal city films. And pirate radio was massive when I was younger, it was so distinct to your area. These areas were defined by who the hosts were, they were playing the real songs and they were really talking to the community. I think in London, music is so prevalent. Like a lot of things, going out is centred around a musical event, and we wanted the film to reflect that.

Hope Ikpoku Jnr’s character, Staples, is kind of a Robin Hood figure. How did his storyline develop?

Tavares: He became much more integral throughout the process. If Ian Wright’s character is the voice of The Kitchen, Staples is the action. He’s the one who’s gonna say, ‘Actually, this is our home,’ and just say, ‘No, I’m gonna provide for my community, because it’s my home and I’ve got a right to be here.’ Yeah, I guess it’s Robin Hood in a way. But there were many iterations. There’s one where he’s like Robin Hood for hire, or a for-profit Robin Hood.

Surveillance is a key theme in the film. How much do you think about the surveillance of black people?

Kaluuya: What is it like, of the top 10 most surveilled cities in the world London is number three and the rest of them are in North Korea. So I think it’s something that we live with and that’s on us. Subconsciously, I just feel like we just scrutinise everything we do. Someone does something stupid to us and then how we react is scrutinised. ‘What the fucks everyone looking at? Look at him, look at her!’ It’s that circle; it’s exhausting. So a way to just express it is to say ‘Fuck it, it is what it is,’ and let people make their decisions, if they get it they get it, if they don’t they don’t.

Gentrification and London’s diminishing Black population are key themes in the film too.

Tavares: I guess for me, gentrification is a hard one to dramatise. How do you make it feel immediate because, actually, it’s quite slow and painful. A heightened world allowed us to be a bit more direct and aggressive with it. I do think community and what your home means is something that we discuss, and also this idea of people getting pushed out. As then you lose what makes London London. What makes London feel rich, diverse, and so full of life

Published 19 Jan 2024

Tags: Daniel Kaluuya Kibwe Tavares