Now in its seventh year, the festival will feature three juried competitions, its first-ever filmmaker retrospective, supported by the European Union National Institutes for Culture, and an expanded industry programme that includes inaugural short film and documentary competitions.
By Adedamola Jones Adedayo
A slate of African titles is set to screen at the 2026 edition of the Nairobi-based NBO Film Festival, celebrating African cinema and filmmaking.
The festival will open with Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo’s Ben’Imana (2026), which made history as the first Rwandan-directed film selected for the Cannes Official Selection, and proceeded to win the Caméra d’Or, awarded to the best debut feature across the entire festival, as well as the FIPRESCI Critics’ Prize. The film follows Vénéranda, a genocide survivor who leads reconciliation conversations between families of victims and perpetrators in post-genocide Rwanda, until she is forced to confront the limits of her own forgiveness when her daughter becomes pregnant.
Included in the lineup is Patience Nitumwesiga’s The Woman Who Poked The Leopard (2025), an intimate portrait of Ugandan poet, academic, and activist, Dr. Stella Nyanzi. The film follows Nyanzi as she confronts patriarchy and dictatorship, while reclaiming autonomy for herself, her family and her nation. It premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and went on to win two awards at DOK Leipzig.
South African filmmaking duo Devon Delmar and Jason Jacobs’ Carissa (2024) will also screen at the festival. The film follows its eponymous protagonist who lives with her grandmother in a small village in the Cederberg Mountains. Encouraged by her grandmother to pursue a job opportunity, Carissa discovers that the position threatens her grandfather’s rooibos farmland, forcing her to choose between conventional success and reconnecting with her roots. The film had its world premiere in the Orizzonti section of the 81st Venice International Film Festival in 2024.
Also included in the programme is Bea Wangondu and Andrew H. Brown’s Kikuyu Land (2026), which follows Nairobi journalist Bea Wangondu as she investigates a land dispute between a local community and a multinational tea corporation, uncovering her family’s secret role in Kenya’s colonial past. The documentary premiered in competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
Other films featured in this year’s NBO Film Festival programme include Hamed Mobasser and Yohane Dean Lengol’s Rumba Royale (2025), Imran Hamdulay’s The Heart Is a Muscle (2025), Zamo Mkhwanazi’s Laundry (2025), Maya Annick Bedward’s Black Zombie (2026) Olive Nwosu’s Lady (2026), Suzannah Mirghani’s Cotton Queen (2025), and Amil Shivji’s Vuta N’kuvute (2021).
Now in its seventh year, the festival will feature three juried competitions, its first-ever filmmaker retrospective, supported by the European Union National Institutes for Culture, and an expanded industry programme that includes inaugural short film and documentary competitions.
The short film competition includes Gift Kyansimire Oroni’s The Big Sad Nairobi, Judith Nina Kibinge’s Goat (2025), Alpha Diallo’s Souls of Fouta (2026), Naishe Nyamubaya’s God Sleeps on Sundays (2026), and Sizwe Kubeka’s The Break-in.
The documentary competition, meanwhile, features The Woman Who Poked The Leopard and Kikuyu Land, as well as Jihan K’s My Father and Qaddafi (2025), The Critics and Pietra Brettkelly’s Crocodile (2026), and Adrian Van Wyk and Chris Kets’ Notes From The Underground (2026)
The NBO Film Festival will take place from 15th to 25th October, 2026.