At 25, Amos ‘Guzman’ Cheruiyot Is Creating a Space for Gen Z Filmmakers

With his lanky frame and mellow eyes subdued behind thick glasses, Amos Byegon Cheruiyot – popularly known to his fans as Guzman – could easily be mistaken for a clean-cut corporate lad climbing the proverbial corporate ladder.

But if there’s anything the 25-year-old founder of Filmmakers Hangout – a learning and networking gathering for filmmakers and film lovers – and Guzman Pictures has clung tightly to over the past six years, it’s his camera.

“My life right now is just about cinema. I’ll never work an office job,” he says, before dropping a bomb. “But I’m taking a break from active filmmaking.” He sees my confusion and clarifies. “I’m not stepping away from the industry entirely, I’ll just be focusing more on marketing and distribution, and less on the production side.”

As I come to learn, film marketing and distribution is a subject that Guzman knows a ton about. He speaks of it with the same passion an astrophysicist might reserve for distant galaxies. A Statistics graduate from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), he’s also fascinated by astrophysics. “In a perfect world, I’d be making astrophysics-inspired sci-fi films,” he says.

Like Trevor Sagide, another young filmmaker we interviewed in February, Guzman is restless and ambitious, eager to steer the industry towards genres rarely explored on Kenyan screens.

Before this interview, I’d been waiting for Guzman at the August 7^th Memorial Park for about 20 minutes. On the phone, he had told me he was “just close nearby.” He arrives a few minutes past 10 am, dressed simply in denim trousers, a plain long-sleeved shirt, Crocs, and his trademark demure smile.

Just a week earlier, on April 26, he had worn a similar look while orchestrating the fourth edition of Filmmakers Hangout, which filled and overflowed the 850-seater Nairobi Cinema. He had been agile and quick-footed, brushing shoulders with local entertainment stars like King Kaka, Foi Wambui, Likarion Wainaina, and Caroline Odongo. The Hangout was also one of the few platforms to screen My Name is Omosh, Crazy Kennar’s debut film, directed and produced by King Kaka.

“Today, I was in a meeting with a screenwriter who wants me to produce their feature film,” he says. “Are you going to?” I ask. “I don’t think so. But I’ll help them prepare all the necessary documents to pitch for funding, and maybe help with crew and casting.”

Though he’s stepping back from active production, he doesn’t mind taking on consulting producer roles. He tells me about another meeting at 1 pm, then another at 4 p.m. No wonder he’s so lanky, I think as he trails on about his busy schedule.

As a young filmmaker, Guzman is not exactly focused on networking up as many in his position would. He prefers to network across, working with his friends and peers. It’s a philosophy popularised by American filmmaker and Insecure creator Issa Rae, who encourages creatives to build and collaborate within their social circle rather than trying to reach for someone higher up in the industry to hold their hands and open the doors of success.

It was networking across that gave Guzman his start. In 2019, as a second-year student at JKUAT, he created Campus Diaries, a web series he wrote, directed, starred in, and edited, all with help from classmates. Quite a feat for a 19-year-old who had never attended film school.

He first taught himself video editing via YouTube, then practiced his newly learned skills by filming randomly and editing. But editing random videos got tediously boring fast, and so he started scripting stories, filming and editing them into short films people could enjoy. This is how Campus Diaries came to life.

 “I did 7 episodes of the web series,” he says. “I was hiring cameras, which was a struggle because I was broke. Most of the time I didn’t even know which camera was appropriate for the kind of shot I needed, so sometimes I would hire a camera and not use it.”

This challenge made him step back and learn more about cameras and lenses.

Today, his IMDb profile shows an impressive list of 18 shorts and web series where he’s credited as screenwriter, director, producer, and editor. Sometimes, he wears all those hats in a single project. Most recently, he produced the femme fatale short Mata Hari, which won the 2024 Nairobi 48 Hour Film Project. Even in that project, he sourced talent from his social circle.

Guzman has a gift for meticulous preparation, paired with a conviction that almost anything is possible. It’s how he makes his films, storyboarding them from start to finish and presiding over every detail like a cloakmaker god.

The name ‘Guzman’ is borrowed from a man who, though infamous for his crimes, represented certain traits Amos admired – bold ambition, strategy, and influence.

“The nickname comes from Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán. Yes, the Mexican drug lord,” he says. “He built a far-reaching empire, the Sinaloa Cartel. Now, I’m not a criminal but I adopted the name after watching the TV series El Chapo, the Netflix crime drama about his life.”

“Just like El Chapo ran a global operation (for better or worse) I want to build networks, move ideas, and make impact, especially in film and creative business,” Guzman says. “For me, it’s about turning the name into something visionary and unstoppable, without the crime. When you hear ‘Guzman,’ think of someone who dares to dream big and move smart, just in a different, (and legal) game.”

Great filmmakers share three things: curiosity, zest, and gusto. Guzman radiates all three. His eyes light up as he describes the behind-the-scenes moments from his shoots, from his love for dynamic camera movements to his distaste for still shots. That spark grows even brighter when he reminisces about the films that shaped him growing up in Bomet.

“I watched a lot of TV,” he says, wistfully. He names Sarafina! as the most impactful film of his childhood. Then, like every other kid growing up in the early 2000s, he had a Kihindi DJ Afro phase and the X-Men film series.

“I was fascinated with the embroidery of stories that made the films,” he says. “I thought I wanted to be an actor because as a kid, you want to be what you see.”

He’s even more excited when we digress a bit into astrology and astronomy, the intersection of religion and science, the existence of extraterrestrial life, and why Manifest is a masterpiece of a TV show – his words, not mine.

When he talks about gatekeeping in Kenya’s film industry, the sparks fade. Despite his track record as an indie filmmaker, Guzman still feels sidelined by the mainstream.

I figure this is why he is so passionate about creating his own community with Filmmakers Hangout. I ask why gatekeeping persists. “I cannot say for certain, maybe it’s because I didn’t go to film school…,” then lightly, “… maybe because I grew up in Bomet.” His attempt at a joke barely softens the underlying frustration. The Kenyan film industry remains beset by elitism, who-do-you-knowism and all the other kinds of -isms that keep the same names in circulation.

“As a self-taught independent filmmaker, it’s hard for the established ones to even hire me on their sets. I’ve reached out with no success. I see them hiring people with way less experience than me just because they’re known or went to film school.”

Still, not all doors have been closed. Guzman speaks highly of actor and filmmaker Nice Githinji, who previously tapped him to help organise Boma Film Nights – her own community cinema initiative. Talks are underway for a collaboration between Boma and the Filmmakers Hangout.

I first met Guzman in 2023 through a mutual friend. I was a wannabe screenwriter with one finished feature and a pile of weird short scripts. He was a film nerd with over ten short film credits. He quickly became my beta reader and soundboard. When we finally met in person, he had an idea for a crime drama he wanted to direct and produce. He enlisted my help writing the screenplay.  A week later, with a production team mostly made up of his former JKUAT classmates and friends, we were scouring locations in Juja to shoot what would become The Files. This short film got me my first IMDb credit. It’s somewhere on YouTube, you can look for it.

Just past 11 am in the course of this interview, we’re joined by another person from Guzman’s circle – Desmond Bundi, who’s been instrumental in organizing the last two Filmmakers Hangouts. At the last edition, he was practically Guzman’s shadow. Bundi is a tall, articulate 19-year-old who drops my jaw when he tells me his age.  When I was 19, I wasn’t getting appointments with Permanent Secretaries from the State Department of Diaspora Affairs, CEOs of government entities like KFCB and Kenya Film Commission or stars like King Kaka and Crazy Kennar, let alone convincing them to partner, sponsor, and show up at my events.

“Through Guzman and Filmmakers Hangout, I’ve met and connected with so many other young film upstarts,” Bundi says. “I’ve learnt so much about filmmaking that I don’t even need to go to film school.”

What exactly is the vision for Filmmakers Hangout? Gearing up to this interview, it was the one question I was dying to ask Guzman.

It started as a networking space for young filmmakers to meet, network, learn, share opportunities, and grow through the ‘networking across’ philosophy. But like his 6’4” height, Guzman’s vision has always stretched higher.

After the first edition in September 2024, which was fully sponsored by the Creative Economy Practice, Guzman realized he could do more than connect people. He could build a film market.

“We don’t have enough ready market for films in Kenya,” he says. “The biggest challenge right now is distribution. We want Filmmakers Hangout to become a space where filmmakers can meet potential distributors and audiences.”

His model? Accessible, convenient and affordable screenings outside traditional cinemas.

“We must shift away from the idea that every film must premiere in a cinema,” he says. “Can your audience really afford the Ksh 2,000 ticket prices?”

Filmmakers, he argues, first need to ask themselves who they’re making their films for and then take these films directly to their audience through cinema mashinani, streaming platforms, or events like Filmmakers Hangout where there’s a ready film-loving Gen Z audience.

Filmmakers Hangout is already actively marketing and distributing films. “We’re creating a ready audience,” Guzman says. “We’re renting films, screening them, and earning from the ticket sales.” 

He sees the event evolving into something like Kalasha Film Market, Durban FilmMart, or Mashariki Film Market. That’s the big picture.

Right now, he’s dedicating most of his time to learning more about film marketing and distribution even as he nurtures a space where Gen Z filmmakers like himself are not only seen and heard, but taken seriously.