“Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives,” but Kena and Ziki long for something more. Despite the political rivalry between their families, the girls resist and remain close friends, supporting each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness and safety.
Against all odds, Ziki and Kena fall in love in Nairobi. In doing so, they must deal with the scrutiny of their community as they come into their sexuality, and navigate the forces that refuse to recognize their relationship. Director Wanuri Kahiu celebrates queer existence in Kenya, while also acknowledging the oppressive realities of queerness. Rafiki, a word that also means ‘friend’ in Swahili, is seminal in the inquiry of queer lives in Africa. It sets the stage and establishes the language and required audacity for these stories as they continue to emerge.
Kika Memeh & Ogheneofegor Obuwoma, FOCUS Curators
Presented by
Samantha Mugatsia, Sheila Munyiva, Jimmi Gathu, Nini Wacera, Dennis Musyoka, Patricia Amira
Kenya
2018
In English and Swahili with English subtitles
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Tim Headington
Producer
Steven Markovitz
Screenwriter
Wanuri Kahiu, Jenna Bass
Cinematography
Christopher Wessels
Editor
Isabelle Dedieu
Production Design
Arya Lalloo
Wanuri Kahiu
Born in Nairobi, Wanuri is part of the new generation of African storytellers. Her stories and films have received international acclaim. Her films screened in numerous film festivals around the world. Rafiki (2018) is her second feature film and was the first Kenyan film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival. She is the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media company that supports, creates and commissions fun, fierce and frivolous African art.
Filmography: From a Whisper (2008); Pumzi (2009); Look Both Ways (2022)
FOCUS: Once, There Is a City
See more films in this series
Ouaga Girls
In this documentary we meet a group of young women training to become mechanics in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It's a male-dominated profession, but they are determined to prove they can handle it.
Tooth for Tooth
In this genial, satiric comedy from Senegal, Idrissa loses his job in the civil service due to austerity measures dictated by the IMF. Humiliated but too proud for his own good, he eventually goes to a shaman to exact his revenge...
Coconut Head Generation
In Nigeria's oldest university, a student film club presents work by Med Hondo, John Akomfrah, Mahamet-Saleh Haroun and others, which spark passionate criticial conversations around ethnicity, gender, colonialism and housing.
Eyimofe (This Is My Desire)
The acclaimed 2020 debut feature from brothers Arie and Chuko Esiri, Eyimofe traces the journeys of two distantly connected strangers as they each pursue their dream of quitting Lagos for a new life in Europe.
Félicité
When her 14-year-old son is seriously injured in a motorbike accident, bar singer Félicité (real life singer Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu--a force of nature) races through the streets desperate to save his life.
Rafiki
Bursting with the colorful style & music of Nairobi’s vibrant youth culture, this exuberant and audacious movie is a tender love story between two young women in a country that still criminalizes homosexuality.