Kenyan filmmaker Likarion Wainaina is back with a new psychological thriller, and this time he’s turning grief itself into the monster in the room. “Anam’s Wake” is set to premiere on July 31, 2026 at Prestige Cinema in Nairobi, with additional screenings on August 1 and 2, and early buzz is already framing it as one of the most anticipated Kenyan genre films of the year. Rooted in African mourning rituals and family drama, it takes the emotions that usually sit quietly at the edge of funerals and drags them into the centre of the story.
At the heart of the film is Anam, played by Marima Wanjiru, a professional mourner trained to summon Death and negotiate the passage of souls. Though she guides other families through loss, Anam has been emotionally numb since her mother’s death sixteen years earlier, carrying unresolved grief like a locked room inside her. When she is sent on her first solo assignment to perform rituals at the powerful Ebale family’s home, what begins as a solemn wake spirals into something far more dangerous as Death appears earlier than expected and the house itself seems to turn against its inhabitants. You can read a detailed synopsis and director’s notes on “Anam’s Wake” here.
As the night unfolds, the film pushes the Ebale family into a confrontation with secrets they’ve buried under tradition and wealth. The wake becomes a pressure cooker where inheritance, guilt, power and superstition collide, and Anam slowly realises that the ritual was never really about the deceased patriarch. Instead, it is a trapdoor into her own unresolved past, forcing her to face the truth about her mother’s death and the emotions she has spent years refusing to feel.
“Anam’s Wake” brings together an ensemble of familiar Kenyan faces: Marima Wanjiru in the title role, Sam Omondi, Peter Kawa as Mason Ebale, Vanessa Okeyo as Amani Ebale, Ruth Apondi as Aunt Kavata, Gathoni Mutua, Brenda Ngeso and newcomer Pras Jadi. Produced by Wanjiru Njoroge with cinematography by Enos Olik, the film is being described by its makers as “deeply rooted in African culture yet universal in its themes,” with long stretches of silence and unsaid words doing as much work as jump scares. You can see premiere details and early promo for the film here.
For Wainaina, known for the critically acclaimed “Supa Modo” and Kenya’s first sci‑fi series “Subterranea,” the project is personal. He has said the story grew out of his own journey through grief, using Anam’s character—a mourner who helps everyone but herself—to explore how loss can become ritual, burden and inheritance all at once. In a year when Kenyan cinema is flexing across genres, from sci‑fi to crime thrillers, “Anam’s Wake” stands out as a film that uses horror not just to scare, but to ask what happens when a community refuses to properly mourn.