Kenyan Documentary ‘Searching for Amani’ Scores Nomination at the 2026 News & Documentary Emmy Awards

Kenyan documentary Searching for Amani has been nominated for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary at the 2026 News & Documentary Emmy Awards.

Directed by Kenyan filmmaker Debra Aroko and American filmmaker Nicole Gormley – both first-time feature directors – Searching for Amani is a coming-of-age story that explores land conflict and the climate crisis through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy, Simon Ali. Spanning four years, the film follows Simon, an aspiring journalist, as he investigates his father’s mysterious murder within one of Kenya’s largest wildlife conservancies in Laikipia.

“At the heart of this nomination is Simon and his family, their kindness, courage and willingness to let us share their story with the world,” said Aroko. “We are endlessly grateful to them and to the remarkable cross-cultural team who made this film possible. We hope Searching for Amani finds the audience who needs it the most.”

Searching for Amani had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2024, where Aroko and Gormley won the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director. It also won Best Documentary Feature at the 2024 Raindance Film Festival and the Dokumentale Competition Prize, valued at €20,000, at the inaugural International Documentary and Media Festival Berlin. The film was among those submitted to the Kenya Oscar Selection Committee for consideration as Kenya’s entry to the 2025 Academy Awards but ultimately lost out to Nawi.

In his review, Sinema Focus critic Kelvin Kariuki described the film as “a fearless investigative piece of a boy asking the right questions about the murder of his father.” “At its core, Searching for Amani presents a stark image of societal restructuring and the generational tensions it perpetuates,” Kariuki wrote.

In the Outstanding Social Issue Documentary category, Searching for Amani is nominated alongside HBO’s Enigma, Netflix’s Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, Born Poor, and The Ride Ahead. The winners in the documentary categories will be presented on May 28, a day after the news categories are awarded.

Searching for Amani follows Softie (2020), nominated for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary at the 2021 News & Documentary Emmy Awards.

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