For the First Time in 8 Years, Kenya Will Not Submit a Film to the Oscars: A Moment of Industry Reckoning?

In a surprise move, for the first time in eight years, Kenya will not be submitting a film to the 98th Academy Awards for Best International Feature. And it’s not alone, for the third time in recent years, Nigeria is also abstaining from the race, according to news reports, though no official confirmation has yet been shared by the Nigerian Oscar Selection Committee.

The news of Kenya’s withdrawal came on 30 September via a press statement from the Kenya Film Commission (KFC), announcing that the Kenya Oscar Selection Committee had decided against sending any film to the 2026 Oscars, after ruling that none of the five submissions met the requirements for consideration.

The official statement reads: The Kenya Oscar Selection Committee has completed its review of films submitted for consideration in the International Feature Film category of the 98th Academy Awards. The review was conducted on the 19th and 20th of September with reference to the Academy’s eligibility requirements as well as the Committee’s assessment of overall artistic and technical quality in line with the standards expected by the Academy and the global filmmaking community.

Five films were submitted. Each was carefully screened and assessed against the Academy’s official eligibility rules, which include:

• Demonstrable Kenyan creative control
• A seven-day commercial theatrical run
• Majority use of a non-English language
• A minimum runtime of 40 minutes

In addition to eligibility, the Committee also evaluated the overall artistic and technical quality of the submissions in line with international standards. After a thorough review, the Committee determined that none of this year’s submissions met the requirements for entry. As a result, Kenya will not be presenting a film in the International Feature Film category of the 98th Academy Awards.

“Our mandate is to select a film that meets the Academy’s eligibility rules while carrying the distinct voice of Kenyan cinema. No film was selected this year, but we remain committed to supporting submissions that can showcase Kenyan creativity and identity on the international stage,” Eddah Kiruhi, the chair of the Kenya Oscar Selection Committee, said.

Other members of the committee include Mishael Mose Nyangau (Association of Film Producing Educational Institutions of Kenya), Thomas Kiguru (Association of Animation Artists of Kenya), Phibian Muthama (Writers Guild Kenya), Peter King Mwania (Kenya Actors Guild), Wanjiru Kairu (Kenya Scriptwriters Guild) and Ginger Wilson (Producers Guild of Kenya).

While it’s unclear which five films the Selection Committee actually received for the 2026 Oscars, we have been tracking all the titles released within the eligibility period (1 October 2024 – 30 September 2025). And while the pool has been dominated by commercial releases, a few films have stood out.

Maia Lekow and Christopher King’s documentary How to Build a Library kicked off the year with a strong festival debut at Sundance, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema – Documentary. Zippy Kimundu’s Widow Champion, which premiered at Tribeca in June, follows a widow’s fight for land rights and dignity for women like herself. In his review of the film, Sinema Focus critic Kelvin Kariuki described it as “patient, precise and piercing,” praising it for “honouring the pain and power of the women at its centre and bringing to light conversations that urgently need to be amplified.”

The most likely reason How to Build a Library and Widow Champion were not considered is that they have yet to premiere in Kenya. The Academy requires a seven-day commercial theatrical run in the submitting country, and both films will only make their Kenyan premiere at the NBO Film Festival (16–26 October), where How to Build a Library is set to open the festival.

Another standout is Damien Hauser’s latest feature Memory of Princess Mumbi, which our review praised as “a sci-fi experiment that shines with authentic sincerity.” However, because the film is predominantly in English, with only brief moments of Swahili, it was definitely locked out by the Academy’s language rule, which requires more than 50% of dialogue to be in a non-English language. Memory of Princess Mumbi will also premiere in Kenya at the 2025 NBO Film Festival.

If Kenya’s strongest contenders were not eligible, then it makes sense that the Oscar Selection Committee chose to abstain rather than simply submit for the sake of participation, a pattern we’ve unfortunately seen with past entries. In our 2023 piece Kenya at the Oscars and Why We Must Put More Thought Into Our Submissions, we argued for this very stance: that some of the films sent to the Academy were not our strongest, and that it was time to step back and rethink why we submit to the Oscars at all.

While the committee’s decision comes as a shock to many, this could be a moment for an industry reckoning. If we take it seriously and really examine our output, then we can begin to recalibrate both the selection process and the kinds of films we send to represent us on the world’s biggest awards stage. Only then will Kenya start putting forward projects – not occasionally but consistently – that don’t just tick boxes for formality but can truly stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best films from around the globe, and the strongest from the continent.

Kenya’s Oscar journey began in 2012 with Tosh Gitonga’s Nairobi Half Life. After a quiet stretch until 2017, Kenya has since been consistent in its participation, submitting nine films in total. These include Likarion Wainaina’s Supa Modo (2019); The Letter (2021), our first documentary entry; Mission to Rescue (2022), our first military action film; and TeraStorm (2023), our first animated superhero entry which Kariuki described in his review as “our toothless bite to the Oscars.” Most recently, for the 2025 Oscars that concluded in March, Kenya was represented by Nawi, a drama confronting child marriages in Turkana. None of these entries have been nominated or even shortlisted.

Since the category’s inception in 1956, 25 African countries have been represented in the Best International Feature category, then known as Best Foreign Language Film until 2019. Of the 25, only 10 have secured nominations, and just three have ever won the category: Algeria’s Z (1969), Ivory Coast’s Black and White in Color (1976), and South Africa’s Tsotsi (2005). It has now been 20 years since an African film last won the award, and four years since Tunisia’s The Man Who Sold His Skin became the continent’s most recent nominee.

But Africa’s scarcity, whether in the shortlist, nomination or winning list, is about more than just quality or production value. A number of factors come into play in shaping the outcomes of an Oscar campaign, key among them, significant resources that African filmmakers, already working with limited funding and minimal institutional support, simply do not have.

As Tambay Obenson of Akoroko (Sinema Focus’ partner at African Film Press) notes, Africa faces an uneven playing field hampered not only by resource constraints even for acclaimed films, but also by cultural and language barriers that can prevent Academy voters from fully grasping the nuance of African narratives.

So far, Africa’s 2026 Oscar race is represented by Morocco’s Calle Málaga; Egypt’s Happy Birthday; Tunisia’s The Voice of Hind Rajab; Senegal’s Demba; and South Africa’s The Heart Is a Muscle. The Academy’s deadline for submissions is today, 1 October, though in past, a few late entries have trickled in, so additional announcements from more African countries may still follow. We might even see a new entrant in Rwanda, who just recently in August, formed its first Oscar selection committee, signalling its interest to join the competition for the very first time. If not, it would be a setback for the continent’s growing participation if numbers dip in 2025, especially with Kenya and Nigeria both out of the race.

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