FILMMAKER WANURI KAHIU ON THE LESBIAN LOVE STORY THAT WAS BANNED IN KENYA

WORDS ROXY BOURDILLON

When Wanuri Kahiu made Raiki, she knew she would rufle feathers in her home country of Kenya. But she could never have predicted that the head of the Kenya Film classification Board, Ezekiel Mutua, would go after her personally. “He used acts of intimidation against me,” the lauded director tells me over Skype one morning. “He said he was going to arrest me and called me a criminal in the newspapers.” The reason Wanuri was so viliied by this man? She had the audacity to direct a romance between two – hold onto your hat, Ezekiel – women.

But when I settle down to watch the movie that caused all this controversy, I don’tfind it scandalous. Instead, I’m struck by how sweetly hopeful this pastel-hued tale of teenage desire is. The only thing that seems outrageous to me is the way the villagers abhor queerness. The meat of Raiki, the affection between Kena (Samantha Mugatsia) and Ziki (Sheila Munyiva), is dreamy and tender. Sadly, as Wanuri explains, it’s precisely the film’s uplifting tone that rendered it “too dangerous” for public consumption. “They asked me to edit the ending to make it more remorseful. They said, ‘If you change the ending, we will give you an 18 rating.’ When I refused, they banned it.” I praise Wanuri for sticking to her creative guns and her response is emphatic: “It’s incredibly important to me, as a filmmaker, to show that my service to film is the creation of hope and joy. I wanted to tell a love story from Africa. More than anything, that’s what I wanted to do.”