Kenya’s Supa Modo Director Returns With Anam’s Wake

KENYA · FILM

Anam’s Wake, the new Kenyan psychological thriller from Supa Modo director Likarion Wainaina, premieres at Nairobi’s Prestige Cinema on July 31 — turning the country’s mourning traditions into the stuff of chilling, slow-burn horror.

A mourner who cannot mourn

The film follows Anam, a professional mourner trained, in the story’s mythology, to summon death and negotiate the passage of souls. She is skilled at guiding others through loss yet has remained emotionally numb since her own mother’s death sixteen years earlier.

Her first solo assignment takes her to the home of the influential Ebale family for what should be a solemn wake. As hidden truths surface, the ritual spirals into an ordeal that tests everything she believes about grief.

From Supa Modo to the dark side of grief

Writer-director Likarion Wainaina earned international affection with Supa Modo, his 2018 crowd-pleaser about a terminally ill girl who dreams of being a superhero. The film premiered at the Berlinale, toured festivals worldwide and became Kenya’s official submission for the Academy Awards.

He followed it with Subterranea, described as Kenya’s first science-fiction series, confirming a taste for genres Kenyan cinema had rarely attempted. Anam’s Wake is his turn toward psychological darkness.

The change of register is personal. “After attending numerous burials in early 2024, I became fascinated by the way sorrow often stays hidden, only to return with overwhelming force later,” Wainaina told Kenyan film outlet Sinema Focus.

The cast bringing the wake to life

Marima Wanjiru leads as Anam, with Peter Kawa as patriarch Mason Ebale, Vanessa Okeyo as Amani Ebale and Ruth Apondi as Aunt Kavata. Pras Jadi, Gathoni Mutua, Sam Omondi and Brenda Ngeso round out the ensemble.

Wanjiru Njoroge produces the film, with cinematography by Enos Olik. The production is Kenyan through and through, from its financing to its funeral rites.

Anam’s Wake: a premiere Kenya is talking about

The announcement has travelled well beyond film circles, drawing coverage from Capital FM to the state broadcaster KBC. The culture site KenyanVibe hailed the film as the psychological reckoning Kenyan audiences need right now.

For a local production arriving without a streaming badge or studio machine behind it, that is unusual oxygen. Wainaina says the project was born of his own journey through grief, and the country’s press has treated it as a cultural event rather than a mere release date.

Mourning as profession, mourning as cinema

The premise is rooted in something real: hired mourners remain part of funeral culture in parts of Kenya and across Africa, where wakes are elaborate community performances of grief. A funeral can run for days, gathering an extended family from across the country to weep, sing and settle old scores.

The film mines that tradition for atmosphere the way Korean cinema mined shamanism or Mexican cinema its Day of the Dead. For international viewers, that specificity is the attraction: a thriller whose scares grow out of East African ritual rather than borrowed Hollywood grammar.

Kenya’s cinema is having a moment

Kenyan and African films are enjoying an unusual run of global attention, with African titles sweeping prizes at this year’s Tribeca festival in New York. Streaming platforms and festival programmers are actively hunting the continent’s next crossover story.

OkayAfrica’s July watchlist, where Anam’s Wake earned its place, spans psychological thrillers, political dramas, romantic comedies and documentaries from across the continent. The sheer range is the story: African cinema no longer arrives in one genre.

A theatrical premiere at a Nairobi multiplex, rather than a straight-to-streaming release, is itself a statement of confidence. Local audiences first, the world after — a model Nollywood proved and East Africa is now testing.

The timing helps. Kenyan broadcasters, streamers and cinemas have all grown hungrier for local originals, and a finished genre film from a director with festival pedigree arrives as prime inventory.

How to see it

Anam’s Wake premieres on July 31 at Prestige Cinema in Nairobi and screens there through August 2. Tickets are sold through the cinema’s regular channels, and international availability has not yet been announced.

A festival run seems the natural next step for a director whose last feature went from the Berlinale to the Oscars race. Expect this wake to travel.

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