Njue Kevin, Known for ‘18 Hours’, Returns to the Director’s Chair With New Social-Issue Drama ‘Blue Uniform’

After a three-year break from the director’s chair, Kenyan filmmaker Njue Kevin returns to direct his next film Blue Uniform.

Described as “his most personal project to date”, Blue Uniform follows a mother whose search for her missing son leads her into the claustrophobic confines of a local police station. As the night stretches on, her desperate inquiry transforms into a tense confrontation with a system designed to delay, deny, and erase.

The film stars Nice Githinji (Subterranea), Mike Mudachi (John Johnny Jonte), Brian Kabugi (Tides), Brian Kimani (Index One) and Keith Chuaga (Jiji).

Njue, who began his filmmaking career as a director with the short film You Intellectual Scum, made his feature directorial debut with 18 Hours before going on to direct TV projects including Crime and Justice, Second Family and Jiji. In recent years, Njue has increasingly shifted his focus to producing, with credits including Big Girl Small World and MTV Shuga Mashariki.

One of his most notable works to date, 18 Hours made history for Kenya when it won Best Overall Movie at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA) in 2018.

The film, which was inspired by the death of Alex Madaga after he spent 18 hours seeking emergency medical treatment, also became part of wider advocacy around emergency healthcare in Kenya, with Njue and the film’s team engaging health officials and policymakers on the issue.

As such, Njue describes Blue Uniform as a “significant return to his roots in social-issue dramas,” one that he says is “reminiscent of his groundbreaking debut 18 Hours.”

“Blue Uniform is not a retelling of a single case, but a translation of emotional truth into cinematic experience,” says Njue. “This film will force the audience to sit inside the discomfort of unanswered questions and the normalisation of police profiling. It asks a fundamental question: what does it mean to stand inches away from authority and still be denied humanity?”

Told through a non-linear narrative structure, the film is inspired by real-life events that have shaped public memory in Kenya, from COVID-19 curfew enforcement to the June 2024 Finance Bill protests.

“Film can do what institutions often avoid, it can make abstraction human,” says Blue Uniform’s producer Marylyn Wanjiku. “It is designed to function as a mirror, one that does not provide easy resolution, but insists on recognition.”

Produced by Muddy Castle Studios, Blue Uniform will begin production in September 2026, with a release set for 2027.

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