International Feature Call Me Queen will grace Africa's red carpet on 17 October 2026, when it makes its African red carpet premiere at the NBO Film Festival in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Kenya-set drama, which was filmed locally with a largely Kenyan cast and production team, will screen at Prestige Ngong Road from 6 pm. The premiere will include a welcome cocktail, the film screening, a cast-and-crew question-and-answer session, and networking with filmmakers and industry guests.
After the festival premiere, Call Me Queen will open in movie theatres in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda from 30 October. The movie will then be released online through YAKWETU after the theatrical run.
Directed by Emily Atef, the film features Eliane Umuhire, Denise Gough, Charlie Carrick, Dominic West, Laurent Lafitte and Danny Sapani, alongside Kenyan performers including Michelle Tiren, Nice Githinji, Lwanda Jawar, Helen Keli, Peter Kawa and Eddie Kimani.
Atef co-wrote the screenplay with Hawa Essuman, Josune Hahnheiser and Jeannine Dominy, adapting veteran foreign correspondent Lara Santoro's novel Mercy. The production brings together international companies including Ringel Film, Les Films Pelleas, Cowboy Films, and Streetcar Productions, along with Zischlermann Filmproduktion, Construction Film, and Ascent Films.
Set in Nairobi in the 1990s during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the story centres on Queen Achungo, a Rwandan refugee and single mother living in Korogocho, and Anna, an international journalist newly arrived in Nairobi. Their relationship develops into a wider struggle around access to life-saving HIV medication, healthcare inequality and the impact of pharmaceutical patents.
