NAIROBI — Marie Ainomugisha’s WhatsApp notifications lit up within minutes of the ban on a film about a forbidden romance between two young women being temporarily lifted.
Her group chat was buzzing, and so were her DMs. It felt like nearly all of her friends were asking the same thing: Now that they were allowed to watch Rafiki, how would they get tickets?
As it turned out, Ainomugisha, a 24-year-old film editor, was the closest of everyone she knew to the only movie theater in Nairobi screening Rafiki. So she quickly hopped on her bike, rode the 1.5 miles from her office to Prestige Cinema, and scooped up a handful of tickets for the first showing: Sunday at 10 a.m. She’d been planning on going out Saturday night to celebrate her 24th birthday, but quickly canceled those plans. This, she thought, was more important.
Ainomugisha’s reaction was mirrored by hundreds of other young Kenyans, especially in the creative and LGBT communities, who had been gripped by the drama surrounding Rafiki. It all started when the Kenya Film Classification Board banned all screenings of the film in the country in April because, according to the board, it “promoted lesbianism” and went against the country’s dominant values. That meant, despite Rafiki being the first Kenyan film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival; despite the fact that it was shot in Kenya, was directed by a Kenyan, and features an all-Kenyan cast, Kenyans could not watch Rafiki in their own country. Since the ban, it has also shown in Durban, South Africa; Zanzibar, Tanzania; and Toronto, Canada.
So on Sept. 12, Wanuri Kahiu, who directed the film, sued the classification board, urging them to lift the ban so that she could submit it as an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. (According to Academy rules, a film has to be shown for seven consecutive days in the country where it was produced in order to be considered a nominee.)
And she won.
On Sept. 21, high court judge Wilfrida Okwany handed down a stunning ruling in favor of Kahiu, saying, “I am not convinced that Kenya is such a weak society that its moral fabric will be shaken simply by watching a film depicting gay themes.” She did not order that the ban be permanently lifted — there will be a separate hearing to determine that later on — but she did order that Rafiki be granted the right to show in Kenya for seven consecutive days so that it could have a shot at the Oscars.
As more information about when and where to watch Rafiki came out on social media, the phone lines at Prestige Cinema clogged with inquires as people called in reserving tickets for the Sunday morning premiere. The theater lobby was overflowing with clusters of friends chatting eagerly over caramel corn, and several groups of others hoping to score a last-minute ticket. The earlier groups flocking to see Rafiki were majority middle-class Kenyans — those who could afford to spend $5.50 with less than 48 hours’ notice to see a movie — so LGBT organizations stepped in to provide tickets to those who didn’t have enough money. Some individuals also offered to buy people tickets on Twitter. Read more via Buzzfeed