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*Director Wanuri Kahiu’s lesbian love story “Rafiki” is the first Kenyan feature to ever screen at Cannes.
But it’s the film that Kenya doesn’t want you to see, as there have been reports of threats of jailing and an outright ban on the film because gay sex is illegal in Kenya, punishable by 14 years in jail.
The romance drama had its world premiere Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival, as the first film from Kenya to be programmed in the fest’s Official Selection.
Movie critic Peter Howell noted:
The fact that “Rafiki” even got out of Africa is no small feat, given how strongly moral and government authorities in Kenya have reacted to this affecting feature by Wanuri Kahiu (From a Whisper), which introduces charismatic teen leads played by Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva.”
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Kenya Film Classification Board head Ezekiel Mutua, the same guy who disputed reports last year of two male lions seen copulating on the Maasai Mara National Reserve (he declared they must be possessed by demons), has decreed that Rafiki wrongly normalizes gay sex and that it’s illegal in Kenya even to own a DVD copy of it.
Rafiki means “friend” in Swahili, and the film centers two teens Kena (Mugatsia) and Ziki (Munyiva) who fall in love after they meet in their Nairobi housing estate. “Seriously complicating this love match is the fact that the fathers of Kena and Ziki are politicians opposing each other in an election — one bills himself as “A Man of Action” and the other as “The People’s Choice” — and neither wants the vote-losing scandal their daughters are creating,” Howell writes, while also noting that “what’s surprising about the film is how little sex there is in it.
The real story of “Rafiki” is how it underlines the reality that even in the 21st century, LGBTQ rights are still far from universal.
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