Announced during the ongoing 82nd Venice International Film Festival, Kenyan feature comedy Tithes and Offerings is among 12 projects selected for international workshopping in the first phase of the 14th edition of Biennale College Cinema, taking place from 7 to 16 October 2025.
Organised by La Biennale di Venezia, Biennale College Cinema is the Venice Biennale’s advanced training laboratory for emerging filmmakers, dedicated to the development and production of micro-budget feature films. Since its launch in 2012, the program has supported 45 feature films.
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Tithes and Offerings is written and directed by Tony Koros, and produced by Toni Kamau and Louise Kamwangi. Koros’ 2019 short of the same name screened at various festivals including Clermont-Ferrand and Palm Springs International ShortFest. The short’s official synopsis reads: An aspiring televangelist in a Nairobi slum fakes his way to fame, but when he accidentally performs a real miracle, his con becomes a precarious balancing act between genuine divine intervention and elaborate fraud.
This project marks the second collaboration between Koros and Kamau, who are also working together on Money Town, a comedy series about a tight-knit community thrown into chaos by the sudden introduction of a Universal Basic Income grant. The series was selected for development at the third edition of the SeriesLab program at the Red Sea Labs in 2025.
Money Town and Tithes and Offerings also represent Kamau’s first foray into fiction. She has previously produced the Emmy-nominated documentary Softie (2020), as well as The Battle for Laikipia (2024) with Daphne Matziaraki, a documentary exploring Kenya’s colonial land legacies and the conflict between Samburu pastoralists and white settlers amid escalating climate change.
Co-producer Kamwangi is an alumna of the Red Sea SeriesLab Program 2024, where she developed her project Generation A, written by Mona Omogo. Her producing credits also include Tuki and Maisha Magic Plus’ telenovela Kona.
Kamwangi and Kamau are producing Tithes and Offerings under We Are Not the Machine, the Kenyan production house behind The Battle for Laikipia, Softie and I Am Samuel.
Tithes and Offerings joins South African project Laatie, directed by Winford Collings and produced by Deidre Jantjies, as the only two African projects selected for the Biennale College Cinema 2025/26.
After the October workshop, four projects will receive production support from the Biennale, each with a budget of up to €200,000. These completed films will then premiere at the 83rd Venice Film Festival in 2026.
The announcement follows two notable Kenyan premieres at Venice 2025. Kenyan sci-fi Memory of Princess Mumbi, directed by Damien Hauser, made its world premiere in competition at Giornate degli Autori, marking the first-ever Kenyan feature selected in this parallel section. Meanwhile, Kenyan-Nigerian co-production One Woman One Bra premiered in Venice as one of the four features developed and produced through Biennale College Cinema.
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