‘Rafiki’ grosses millions in theatres

In just seven days, during a limited screening run, banned Kenyan movie ‘Rafiki’ hit top of the country’s box office, raking in millions of shillings from cinemas.

It has been reported that the movie, which was banned by Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) for promoting lesbianism, grossed about $33,000 (Sh3.3 million) during the short period of its screening.

In the seven days, during a temporary lift of the ban by the High Court, the film was screened to over 6,500 people in major film theaters in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. “Even though there was limited screen time allotted at the last minute after the court ruling, the film was performing to full house capacity at all shows running, a welcome scene for a Kenyan film,” Trushna Patel, a representative from the Kenya film’s distributor, said. The movie however missed out on nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category in this year’s Oscar Awards. Rafiki was banned by KFCB for for promoting lesbianism, but a court ruling temporarily lifted the ban to enable it be considered for the Oscar nomination, since to qualify for nomination a film must have run in movie theatres in its country of origin for at least one week.