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Wanuri Kahiu
Wanuri Kahiū (born 21 June 1980) is a Kenyan film director, producer, and author. She is considered to be "one of Africa's most aspiring directors, being part of a new, vibrant crop of talents representing contemporary African culture". She has received multiple awards and nominations including for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture at the Africa Movie Academy Awards in 2009 for her dramatic feature film From a Whisper. She is also the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media collective dedicated to supporting African art for its own sake.
As of 2023, Kahiū was reported to be living in Kenya.
In 2025, Kahiū served as a juror at the Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Dramatic competition category, alongside Ava Cahen and Daniel Kaluuya.
Kahiū was born in Nairobi, Kenya. Though she grew up in an extended family that included creatives, the filmmaker described herself as a black sheep to her more traditional leaning parents: her father, a businessman and her mother a doctor, one of the first female pediatricians in the Nairobi region.
Kahiū first became enamored with filmmaking when exposed to an editing studio when she was sixteen. "When I entered that editing suite I fell in love. It aligned my two passions; which is being a tele addict and being a bookworm and anything that would allow me to maintain that space and call it a career was for me."
Kahiū attended the University of Warwick in England and received a BSc degree in Management science. In 2001, she obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in production and directing at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theatre, Film and Television.
In 2003, Kahiū began her filmmaking career interning for the American director and producer F. Gary Gray's on The Italian Job. As she explains, Gray taught her to "keep an eye on the bigger picture but not to take the details for granted". In 2006, Kahiu made her directing debut with the behind-the-scenes documentary The Spark that Unites about the making of Catch a Fire directed by Phillip Noyce. Becoming close friends with Kahiu, Noyce encouraged her to go back to her home country to tell Kenyan stories.
Ras Star (2006) is Kahiū's first short narrative film. It tells the story of Amani, a teenager living with his Islamic aunt and uncle in Nairobi who dreams of being a rapper, and secretly practices for a local talent show. Instead, he and his brother get pulled into crime.
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Wanuri Kahiu
Wanuri Kahiū (born 21 June 1980) is a Kenyan film director, producer, and author. She is considered to be "one of Africa's most aspiring directors, being part of a new, vibrant crop of talents representing contemporary African culture". She has received multiple awards and nominations including for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture at the Africa Movie Academy Awards in 2009 for her dramatic feature film From a Whisper. She is also the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media collective dedicated to supporting African art for its own sake.
As of 2023, Kahiū was reported to be living in Kenya.
In 2025, Kahiū served as a juror at the Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Dramatic competition category, alongside Ava Cahen and Daniel Kaluuya.
Kahiū was born in Nairobi, Kenya. Though she grew up in an extended family that included creatives, the filmmaker described herself as a black sheep to her more traditional leaning parents: her father, a businessman and her mother a doctor, one of the first female pediatricians in the Nairobi region.
Kahiū first became enamored with filmmaking when exposed to an editing studio when she was sixteen. "When I entered that editing suite I fell in love. It aligned my two passions; which is being a tele addict and being a bookworm and anything that would allow me to maintain that space and call it a career was for me."
Kahiū attended the University of Warwick in England and received a BSc degree in Management science. In 2001, she obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in production and directing at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theatre, Film and Television.
In 2003, Kahiū began her filmmaking career interning for the American director and producer F. Gary Gray's on The Italian Job. As she explains, Gray taught her to "keep an eye on the bigger picture but not to take the details for granted". In 2006, Kahiu made her directing debut with the behind-the-scenes documentary The Spark that Unites about the making of Catch a Fire directed by Phillip Noyce. Becoming close friends with Kahiu, Noyce encouraged her to go back to her home country to tell Kenyan stories.
Ras Star (2006) is Kahiū's first short narrative film. It tells the story of Amani, a teenager living with his Islamic aunt and uncle in Nairobi who dreams of being a rapper, and secretly practices for a local talent show. Instead, he and his brother get pulled into crime.
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