
“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
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
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)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Graduate
In The Graduate Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman, 30 playing 20 with masterly understatement) comes home from college and is surprised to be seduced by the wife of his father's business partner, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).
blur: To the End
Now in their late 50s, Britpopsters blur (of Song 2 fame) do a celebratory lap of Great Britain culminating in their first ever Wembley Stadium show in this appealing observational doc. A companion piece to the concert film Live at Wembley Stadium.
Midnight Cowboy
Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman are street hustlers on different ends of the innocence / experience spectrum who establish something more than a business partnership in the seedy world of late 60s New York City in John Schlesinger's New Hollywood classic.
Sinners
This year's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.
The Headless Woman
The pictures tell the story -- and you better not blink -- when Veronica (the superb Maria Onetto) hits something on the road home. But what? She is too traumatized, or panic-stricken, to go back and look, and her fears are too terrible to acknowledge.