Nairobi distributor Crimson Multimedia will release Emily Atef’s Call Me Queen in cinemas in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda on Friday 30 October, and the drama will go online on the Kenyan platform Yakwetu from 13 November, according to a statement from the distributors issued after the film’s Kenyan premiere at the NBO Film Festival in Nairobi on 17 October. Screen counts and ticket prices have not been announced.
Key facts
- Call Me Queen (dir. Emily Atef): cinema release in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda from 30 October 2026, through Crimson Multimedia
- Online on Yakwetu from 13 November 2026, two weeks after the cinema opening
- Kenyan premiere: NBO Film Festival, Prestige Cinema, Ngong Road, Nairobi, 17 October 2026
- More than 150 Kenyan cast and crew worked on the film, the distributors say
- Production: Ringel Film (Germany), Les Films Pelléas (France), Cowboy Films and Streetcar Productions (UK); sales by Global Constellation
The plan gives a German-led co-production shot in Nairobi a four-country cinema release handled from Kenya, followed two weeks later by a local digital service rather than a global streamer. Trushna Buddhdev-Patel, managing director of Crimson Multimedia and co-founder of Yakwetu, said in the statement that the film “deserves to be watched widely” and that the online release is for viewers “where cinemas cannot reach the audience”, as quoted by Expression Africa. Business News Kenya and KeNews reported the same dates.
Nyali Cinemax in Mombasa already lists screenings from 30 October. Cinemas in Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda have not been named.
From Toronto to Nairobi
Broadcast Media Africa billed the Nairobi screening as the film’s African premiere. Call Me Queen first screened at TIFF: The Market in Toronto on 10 September, according to filmportal.de, then played Filmfest Hamburg. Filmreederei released it in Germany on 15 October, it plays the Arras Film Festival in November, and New Story releases it in France on 13 January 2027.
At the NBO Film Festival, which ran 15–25 October, producer Gian-Piero Ringel, Atef and lead actor Eliane Umuhire attended with Kenyan cast members Nice Githinji, Helen Keli, Peter Kawa, Michelle Tiren and Lwanda Jawar Kotengo, who is credited as Lwanda Jawar.
The film and its makers
Set in late-1990s Nairobi during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the film stars Umuhire as Queen Achungo, a Rwandan refugee and single mother from Korogocho who becomes housekeeper to Anna, an Irish correspondent played by Denise Gough. Queen’s HIV diagnosis turns the story towards the fight for affordable treatment. Dominic West, Danny Sapani and Laurent Lafitte also star.
It is adapted from Lara Santoro’s 2007 novel Mercy. Atef wrote the screenplay with Kenyan-Ghanaian filmmaker Hawa Essuman, Josune Hahnheiser and Jeannine Dominy, and Hélène Louvart shot it in Nairobi in early 2025. Zischlermann Filmproduktion, Construction Film and Nairobi’s Ascent Films co-produced.
Crimson Multimedia’s earlier Kenyan releases include Nairobi Half Life, Rafiki and Supa Modo, according to the company, Business News Kenya reported. Yakwetu, which Buddhdev-Patel co-founded with Mike Strano, rents and sells films on a pay-as-you-go basis rather than by subscription, Strano told WIPO Magazine in 2024. The distributors are also seeking partners for impact screenings on HIV prevention and treatment.
For more from the region, see the Nigerian run of Agbara Nla: The Return, El Gouna’s top prize for Safe Exit and our look at who is actually taking films to audiences.
Our reading
The East African rights sit with a Nairobi distributor whose managing director co-founded the online outlet, so the cinema run and the digital window are planned as one release. For producers with East African stories, that is a route worth pricing against a single licence to a global streamer.
The two-week gap between cinemas and Yakwetu is short, and the distributors present the online release as a way to reach viewers cinemas cannot, not as a later window. The first evidence will be the Kenyan opening weekend, 30 October–1 November, and whether exhibitors in Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda give the film more than a token run. Admissions and Yakwetu rental figures, if Crimson publishes them, would show whether the model holds.
Sources
- Expression Africa, 22 October 2026 (distributors’ statement and Buddhdev-Patel quote)
- Business News Kenya, 22 October 2026
- KeNews, 25 October 2026
- Broadcast Media Africa, 27 October 2026
- Broadcast Media Africa, 24 September 2026 (NBO premiere announcement)
- Nyali Cinemax, Mombasa, Call Me Queen listing
- Filmreederei, Call Me Queen (German distributor’s official page, credits and stills)
- Ringel Film, company site
- filmportal.de, Call Me Queen (shoot dates, Toronto market screening)
- Filmfest Hamburg 2026, Call Me Queen
- Screen, review, 30 September 2026
- Screen, first look, 18 May 2025
- Sinema Focus, 27 August 2026 (TIFF market screenings)
- New Story, Call Me Queen (French distributor)
- Arras Film Festival 2026, Call Me Queen
- NBO Film Festival 2026
- WIPO Magazine, 16 July 2024, on Yakwetu