The Kenyan Court of Appeals on Jan. 23 overturned a ban on the film “Rafiki”, which the Kenya Film Classification Board in 2018 had claimed promoted illegal same-sex intimacy.
The online publication “The Conversation” reports:
The film Rafiki is a charming love story that plays out in urban Kenya. It follows two teenage girls whose close friendship slowly turns into first love. Directed by rising filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, it was celebrated as groundbreaking by critics and at festivals when it was released in 2018. But back home in Kenya, where homosexuality is criminal, the film was banned.
On 23 January 2026, after an eight-year legal campaign by the film producers, the Kenyan Court of Appeals ruled that the 2018 ban was not reasonable in terms of the country’s constitution. This means they and director Wanuri Kahiu can now submit the film for classification under Kenya’s Films and Stage Plays Act as part of the process to allow public screenings.
The court stressed that depicting a same-sex relationship doesn’t amount to promoting illegal conduct, which is how the state-funded Kenya Film Classification Board had justified the ban in 2018. The film’s happy ending was perceived to be “promoting homosexuality”. The ban quickly became a symbol of the problems filmmakers face whenever they challenge traditional views on sex, gender and morality.
The ruling marks more than the ongoing rehabilitation of a single film. It signals a subtle but significant shift in how African film might negotiate censorship in the years to come.
My research as a scholar of African queer cinemas has focused on how such moments reveal the fragile yet transformative possibilities through which African film cultures negotiate visibility and legitimacy. And the right to imagine queer futures and freedom of speech on their own terms.
At first glance, the ruling might appear modest. Kenya has not decriminalised same-sex relations, and legal restrictions on LGBTIQ+ lives remain firmly in place. Even so, Rafiki’s chance of a return is very important.
It marks the first time a Kenyan film previously prohibited for queer content has been potentially permitted public circulation. Other recently banned queer-themed films like I am Samuel remain banned.
Although largely symbolic, the gesture disrupts long-standing assumptions about what African films can show, who they can centre, and which lives can be made visible.
African film industries have historically operated under difficult systems of moral, religious, and political regulation. From colonial censorship boards to postcolonial classification authorities, film has been treated as requiring constant surveillance.
Sexuality, especially queer sexuality, has been one of the most heavily policed domains. Films tackling same-sex desire have often been banned, restricted to festival circuits, or forced into underground circulation. In South Africa, the film Inxeba/The Wound was effectively banned from mainstream cinemas. In Nigeria, the first independent queer film Ìfé was prohibited from cinemas.
Rafiki’s initial banning followed this pattern. Despite being selected for screening at the important Cannes Film Festival, it was deemed unsuitable for Kenyan audiences. An internationally celebrated Kenyan film could be screened overseas but not in Nairobi.
So the ruling disrupts this asymmetry. It shows that national cinemas cannot indefinitely insulate themselves from transnational circuits. Overseas, African queer films increasingly gain visibility, prestige and market value.
Kenyan law appears, in this sense, to be more flexible and changing in response to international attention, cultural pressure and public image.
One of the most significant implications of the potential unbanning concerns the question of audiences. Bans don’t just suppress content; they also actively shape who is imagined as the viewers. For decades, queer African films have been implicitly addressed to foreign audiences, festivals and academic readers, rather than to local publics.
Allowing Rafiki to screen at home will challenge this idea. It will open a space, even if it’s a fragile one, for Kenyan audiences to encounter queer lives. Not as abstract political controversies but as intimate, everyday narratives. Rafiki tells a deliberately modest story, grounded in the innocence of first love and the textures of everyday life in the city.
This matters because being represented is not only about being visible. It’s also about producing audiences. More than depicting queer lives, films like Rafiki shape new viewing communities and new forms of recognition.
In this sense, the ruling contributes to a slow reconfiguration of African film publics. It suggests that African audiences are not uniformly conservative or inherently hostile to queer narratives. Instead, they are plural and capable of engaging with complex stories about identity, love and desire.
These publics have been chan
The online publication “The Conversation” reports:
The film Rafiki is a charming love story that plays out in urban Kenya. It follows two teenage girls whose close friendship slowly turns into first love. Directed by rising filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, it was celebrated as groundbreaking by critics and at festivals when it was released in 2018. But back home in Kenya, where homosexuality is criminal, the film was banned.
On 23 January 2026, after an eight-year legal campaign by the film producers, the Kenyan Court of Appeals ruled that the 2018 ban was not reasonable in terms of the country’s constitution. This means they and director Wanuri Kahiu can now submit the film for classification under Kenya’s Films and Stage Plays Act as part of the process to allow public screenings.
The court stressed that depicting a same-sex relationship doesn’t amount to promoting illegal conduct, which is how the state-funded Kenya Film Classification Board had justified the ban in 2018. The film’s happy ending was perceived to be “promoting homosexuality”. The ban quickly became a symbol of the problems filmmakers face whenever they challenge traditional views on sex, gender and morality.
The ruling marks more than the ongoing rehabilitation of a single film. It signals a subtle but significant shift in how African film might negotiate censorship in the years to come.
My research as a scholar of African queer cinemas has focused on how such moments reveal the fragile yet transformative possibilities through which African film cultures negotiate visibility and legitimacy. And the right to imagine queer futures and freedom of speech on their own terms.
At first glance, the ruling might appear modest. Kenya has not decriminalised same-sex relations, and legal restrictions on LGBTIQ+ lives remain firmly in place. Even so, Rafiki’s chance of a return is very important.
It marks the first time a Kenyan film previously prohibited for queer content has been potentially permitted public circulation. Other recently banned queer-themed films like I am Samuel remain banned.
Although largely symbolic, the gesture disrupts long-standing assumptions about what African films can show, who they can centre, and which lives can be made visible.
African film industries have historically operated under difficult systems of moral, religious, and political regulation. From colonial censorship boards to postcolonial classification authorities, film has been treated as requiring constant surveillance.
Sexuality, especially queer sexuality, has been one of the most heavily policed domains. Films tackling same-sex desire have often been banned, restricted to festival circuits, or forced into underground circulation. In South Africa, the film Inxeba/The Wound was effectively banned from mainstream cinemas. In Nigeria, the first independent queer film Ìfé was prohibited from cinemas.
Rafiki’s initial banning followed this pattern. Despite being selected for screening at the important Cannes Film Festival, it was deemed unsuitable for Kenyan audiences. An internationally celebrated Kenyan film could be screened overseas but not in Nairobi.
So the ruling disrupts this asymmetry. It shows that national cinemas cannot indefinitely insulate themselves from transnational circuits. Overseas, African queer films increasingly gain visibility, prestige and market value.
Kenyan law appears, in this sense, to be more flexible and changing in response to international attention, cultural pressure and public image.
One of the most significant implications of the potential unbanning concerns the question of audiences. Bans don’t just suppress content; they also actively shape who is imagined as the viewers. For decades, queer African films have been implicitly addressed to foreign audiences, festivals and academic readers, rather than to local publics.
Allowing Rafiki to screen at home will challenge this idea. It will open a space, even if it’s a fragile one, for Kenyan audiences to encounter queer lives. Not as abstract political controversies but as intimate, everyday narratives. Rafiki tells a deliberately modest story, grounded in the innocence of first love and the textures of everyday life in the city.
This matters because being represented is not only about being visible. It’s also about producing audiences. More than depicting queer lives, films like Rafiki shape new viewing communities and new forms of recognition.
In this sense, the ruling contributes to a slow reconfiguration of African film publics. It suggests that African audiences are not uniformly conservative or inherently hostile to queer narratives. Instead, they are plural and capable of engaging with complex stories about identity, love and desire.
These publics have been chan