Ban lifted on lesbian feature film

Ruling may help overturn Kenya homosexuality law

NAIROBI, KENYA— A judge in Kenya has temporarily lifted a ban on a film that features a lesbian love story, allowing its producers to fulfill the criteria necessary to submit it to next year’s Oscars as a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

The film, called Rafiki, which means friend in Swahili, depicts two young women from opposing political backgrounds who nevertheless fall in love. Kenya’s Film Classification Board banned it in April, saying it violated the country’s “family values.” Homosexuality is criminalized in Kenya, as it is in many former British colonies. But Friday’s ruling on Rafiki may be a precursor to overturning those laws.

India and Trinidad and Tobago, also former British colonies, legalized homosexuality this month, with judges providing legal reasoning for why Victorian-era anti-sodomy laws were irreconcilable with the civil rights enshrined in their postindependence constitutions.

In her ruling on Friday, Judge Wilfrida Okwany said that she was “not convinced that Kenya is such a weak society that its moral foundation will be shaken by seeing such a film.”

Wanuri Kahiu, the film’s director, tweeted: “I am crying. In a french airport. In SUCH Joy! Our constitution is STRONG! Give thanks to freedom of expression!!!! WE DID IT!”

Rafiki is Kenya’s first entry at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.