Rollout is a vérité-style journey alongside residents of a tight-knit Kenyan community, as they face mounting pressure from a government they don’t trust, to get a Covid-19 vaccine they fear may cause more harm than good.
The movie is a journey alongside residents of a Kibera, Nairobi - including Laureen, a mother and immunization nurse. Through Rollout, we seek to show a vivid picture of the powerful and complex narratives and lived experiences driving the “shadow pandemic of vaccine hesitancy" which delayed vaccine uptake across communities worldwide, and ultimately stymied humanity’s chance to achieve global herd immunity.
As the rollout efforts expand countywide, Laureen and her fellow healthcare workers visit with vibrant community members - from a church pastor to a radio DJ - who share their perspectives on the vaccination efforts. Through their stories, we feel their visceral mistrust, seemingly sparked by the government’s deeply unpopular and aggressive early pandemic response, and further fueled by a relentless flood of misinformation and conspiracy theories. We explore the deeper historical context that further exacerbates this mistrust, namely the fraught relationship between community members and global health actors, and a global vaccination agenda designed by global institutions that are disconnected from the needs of Kibera's residents.