Call Me Queen made its Kenyan debut at Prestige Cinema during the NBO Film Festival.
Emily Atef’s film follows two women in 1990s Nairobi as friendship becomes a fight for HIV treatment and dignity.
Call Me Queen made its Kenyan debut at the 2026 NBO Film Festival at Prestige Cinema on Ngong Road. The international production explores friendship, inequality and the struggle for HIV treatment in 1990s Nairobi.
Director Emily Atef, producer Gian Piero Ringel and lead actress Eliane Umuhire attended the red-carpet premiere. Kenyan actors Nice Githinji, Helen Keli, Peter Kawa, Michelle Tiren and Lwanda Jawar Kotengo also joined the event.
Umuhire plays Queen Achungo, a Rwandan refugee raising her children alone in Korogocho. Meanwhile, Irish actress Denise Gough portrays Anna, an international journalist living in an affluent Nairobi suburb.
Call Me Queen explores friendship and healthcare inequality
Queen takes a housekeeping job in Anna’s home because she wants a better life for her children. Their working relationship gradually becomes a friendship, challenging both women’s assumptions about wealth, race and human worth.
However, Queen’s HIV-positive diagnosis brings the inequalities surrounding healthcare into sharp focus. Her struggle unfolds at a time when millions cannot access life-saving medication. As a result, her personal battle develops into a broader fight for treatment and dignity.
The film also examines poverty, pharmaceutical patents and political responsibility through Queen’s experience. Alongside those themes, it revisits the activism and community resistance that shaped the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Atef describes Queen as the story’s central heroine, highlighting her strength, humour, fearlessness and intelligence. For the director, those qualities underpin Queen’s leadership as she and her community pursue change on their own terms.
Kenyan filmmakers contribute to international production
Inspired by true events, the film draws on Mercy, a novel by veteran foreign correspondent Lara Santoro. Atef developed the screenplay with Kenyan-Ghanaian writer Hawa Essuman, German filmmaker Josune Hahnheiser and British writer Jeannine Dominy.
More than 150 Kenyan cast and crew members contributed to the production. The largely female Kenyan team helped bring its Nairobi setting and social realities to the screen. The international cast also includes Charlie Carrick, Dominic West, Laurent Lafitte and Danny Sapani.
The film carries a dedication to the late Kenyan film and television producer Appie Matere. She worked on the project as a producer in collaboration with Ascent Films.
Crimson Multimedia is handling East African distribution, covering cinemas in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. An online release through YAKWETU also extends the film’s reach beyond cinema audiences.
Trushna Buddhdev-Patel, Crimson Multimedia’s managing director and YAKWETU co-founder, says the combined approach aims to widen access. In particular, the online option targets viewers outside major cinema centres.
