this is bbc news, the headlines: emmerson mnangagwa, zimbabwe's incumbent and emmerson mnangagwa, zimbabwe's incumbentand zanu—pf emmerson mnangagwa, zimbabwe's incumbent and zanu—pf candidate has won the presidential election. emmerson mnangagwa says he will try to bring the divided nation together. earlier, zimbabwe's main opposition party refuted the result ina opposition party refuted the result in a vote marred by controversy and violence. president trumps‘ national security team lined up to say they have evidence that russia is trying to interfere in the us's election process. mr trump's top official said he had been taking decisive action to defend the country's election system from interference. and apple has become the first company to reach $1 trillion us in market value. the iphone maker's value reached the figure in late wednesday morning trading in new york as its share rose to a new record high. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk,

with me, zeinab badawi. in august, it will be 20 years since more than 200 people were killed when simultaneous bomb attacks were carried out at the us embassies in kenya and tanzania. my guest is the acclaimed kenyan filmmaker wanuri kahiu who made an award—winning film on the tragedy. her latest film depicting a lesbian love affair, however, has been banned in kenya. what does her filmmaking tell us about african society today and how africans are viewed by wider audiences? wanuri kahiu, welcome to hardtalk.

thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. what do you get from making films? what's the purpose behind it for you? well, actually, i've made my purpose afrobubblegum, which is the creation of fun, fierce and frivolous films, so we can reframe africa in joy so that images and the pictures of ourselves are not only beautiful and poignant, but also, stunningly joyous and radically hopeful. you were born and bred in nairobi and you grew up surrounded by women, strong women who you say were actively pursuing happiness. why do you feel it's important to reflect that kind ofjoy for life in your films about africa? well, so often i feel africa's not betrayed as a happy continent. it's not portrayed as some place that is glorious and thriving and wonderful, and that's my experience. my experience of africa has been that — has been wonderful

and joyful, and i want to add those experiences to cinema. but it doesn't mean that you're impervious to the fact that there is still a great deal of suffering amongst africans. you might be lucky, but, i mean, we've all, you know, those of us who have been to nairobi, you see the kibera slums and the difficulties that people are having. yeah, i think it's more about a balance of images. i think that there's many, many images of us suffering and disease—stricken and poverty—stricken and war—stricken and all those things, but there aren't enough images of us as thriving individuals. so my effort is to balance the view rather than anything else. alright, you fell in love with films as a teenager, so what did your parents say when you said, "look, i want to study film"? well, they didn't think it was a good idea, initially. and i'm not sure — sometimes i'm not sure that they still do, so it's complicated, but they're so... what, really? even now when you're... even now. ..award—winning, that kind of thing? i think it's a little more

complicated now because of the kind of films that i make, but they are incredibly supportive and they made me, so this is a result of them. so, when you landed an internship with universal films in the united states, you said, "i learnt a lot from them, but i was determined to come back home and tell the kenyan story." absolutely. why did you want to tell — just the kenyan story or something more? because that's quite niche. actually, it's bigger than that. initially, i did want to come home and start to create my voice in kenya, i wanted it to be influenced by the place that i live and the people that i love, that was the initial thrust of that. but later, it's become african stories as a lens on a broader humanity, and then later, it's going to be more, so i think it's just continuously evolving. but right now, i'm very, very curious about creating — about telling stories aboutjoy

and especially black joy. and you're using afrobubblegum, the media company that you say that you founded, in order to do that as a vehicle. so, after your studies in the uk and us, that's what you established. but is that the only way you felt that, as a black female filmmaker, you could get yourfilms made, just seize the bull by the horns yourself and use your own vehicle? well, it's incredibly hard to be a young filmmaker and make it in los angeles, and i knew i had a better chance of going home and trying to tell the stories that i wanted to tell in the way that i wanted to tell them first. and then, hopefully, broaden out my audience and move into a larger space. but i'm just incredibly proud to be part of an african filmmaking generation of storytellers. your first film was from a whisper, which was based on the terrible twin bombings in kenya and tanzania and the us embassies there on 7 august, 1988, so a grim anniversary coming up, and most of the more than 200 people who were killed were actually victims in kenya, and more than 4,000 injured. why did you feel you wanted to make a film related to that event? because so often, when these events happen, people are just

reduced to statistics. we have numbers of people who are injured and numbers of people, but we don't actually hear the stories or the emotion of smaller families that were affected or smaller tragedies that happened, or even just begin to understand that the people who are responsible for some of the crimes were kenyan, were african, they were ours. so unless we start having the conversation about where, we started to depart from the way of our own, from where that rift started to happen, then we can't properly address the language of violence that is so easily being used this day in extremism. the film is actually based on a young woman called tamani, who is searching for her mother who was caught up in the blast,

and she's convinced that she could have survived the blast. how much of it was fact and how much of it was fiction? well, it was mostly fiction, but it was based on fact. so, we researched the stories about the people who were bombing, who were secondary characters in the story, and how they came into the building, what their psyche was, how they decided and how they used their faith to make decisions about their extremist measures. so that was factual, but the story about the girl herself was fictional. how important is it, though, for you, to stick to facts when you're making a film that is based on true events? because a lot of filmmakers say it's very important to do that, to not play fast and loose with the facts. i think it depends on the story. if you're making a biography, obviously,it‘s important to be as close to the character as possible. but in this space, the space that i was creating was a fictional

character in a real space. so i honoured the space in the reality of it, but the stories that were built on top of that were completely fictional. and your film won five awards at the fifth african movie academy awards. but don't you want a wider audience to know about this? because it was a dreadful act of terror, yet it's not had the same kind of focus, arguably, that similar acts elsewhere in europe, in the united states have had. so, for example, prudence bushell, who was the american ambassador in nairobi at the time, has given an interview to newsweek recently, she's written her memoirs, yet to be published, about what happened, and she says that, you know, it's forgotten. yes, it is largely forgotten, but that so often happens with tragedies that happen on the continent, is that we quickly move past them in news cycles and we quickly move past them regardless of the people who have been injured and need help and would need some sort of assistance, and that's something

that we really do need to address. assistance, i mean, infact, as i said, around 4,000 kenyans survived the blast, but the lot of them died and their victims and their families are still awaiting compensation. i will give you an example — lima, a former us employee says, "the attack disabled me and i cannot fend for myself." he's still waiting for compensation. emily nabwire, who lost her husband in the blast in nairobi, says, "i have been unable to raise and educate my children because i have no money to do so." i mean, it's a travesty, it's a tragedy. yeah, it's incredibly tragic, and these are the times that we need more social support than ever. but do you feel, as somebody with a voice in kenya, you say you want to make films for a kenyan audience, that perhaps — do you feel that you ought to try to help raise awareness about this? i think myjob was raising an awareness in the creation

of the film, that was myjob in that sense. there are so many things that i want to say that i can't only dwell on one issue, as tragic as the issue may be, so myjob was to create awareness of it, and we have through the film, and to continue to advocate in conversations like this and in other spaces, to say that there are people, there are injustices that need to be recognised and need to be remedied. how much of a debate is there about it in kenya with this 20th anniversary coming up? unfortunately, it's very silent, there's not much being said about it, and i wish that there was more, and i think it's time to revisit it 20 years in, people are still suffering. because i've just given a couple of examples of which there are numerous ones. another film you made is a documentary on the life of the late nobel peace prize laureate wangari maathai, who won it for her environmental activism. you've also made a short science fiction film called pumzi. do you believe you can

straddle both genre — documentary and fiction, or do you feel that you ought to kind of throw your resources behind one of the other? no, i think i'm a storyteller. i'll also write books in my time and i will, hopefully, direct theatre in my time. i think stories come in different forms, and sometimes they come in documentary form and sometimes they come in fictional form. myjob is just to be a vessel for the story to come through and it chooses the way that it comes through best. but i'm so grateful for the stories that i've been able to tell. meeting your hero in your lifetime is unimaginable and the fact that i was able to make a story and a film about wangari maathai was truly a highlight of my career. well, your latest film, rafiki, which means "friend" in kiswahili, is the first feature film to have actually been shown at the cannes film festival, is causing you a lot of trouble, isn't it? it's a coming—of—age story about two teenagers who are the daughters of two prominent politicians in kenya who fall in love and find that their identity is compromised

by conservative society that looks down on lesbian love. before we talk about it, let's just take a clip of the film. great. hi. uh, so...do you want to do something? um...we can go get a soda. a soda? cool! so? er...do you want something to eat? cassava. thanks.

this is where you hang out? yeah, i usually hang out here. would you like to get out of here? just a little taste there for those who've not really seen it. so now, that film, rafiki, banned by the kenyan film classification board, wanuri kahiu, because it said it had a "homosexual theme and clear intent to promote lesbianism in kenya contrary to the law and dominant values of the kenyans." did you deliberately set out

to upset and challenge societal norms in kenya where homosexuality is illegal and gay sex is punishable by up to 1a years injail? no, i was fully intending to reflect the society i live in, and i fully intended to create a story that mature kenyan audiences can watch, can debate, can have opinions and can decide whether or not they want to watch it. that was my goal. mature kenyans, you say? i do believe... so, you wanted a certificate of, what, 18 put on it? i knew that it wasn't going to get anything less than an 18 rating and so we really wanted an 18 rating and were incredibly disappointing when we didn't get one. well, in fact, the board's statement said the decision to ban the film had been taken, as they said, with various stakeholders and agencies of law. did you accept that they took

a considered decision? i think that they took a considered decision for them, but i feel like they ran counter to our constitution, because our constitution actually allows us freedom of expression. so, ifind itjust a challenge to think that the kenya film classification board would push on issues that run counter to the constitution that we, as the people, as a republic of kenya, voted in. but you are accused by the board of breaking the law by altering the film script that you had originally submitted for licensing without permission. they say in the script that you submitted, the lead actors were portrayed as having been attacked for political reasons, whereas in the film, they were obviously attacked for being homosexual. is that the case? did you mislead the authorities? i did not mislead the authorities at all. we have a film licence that is based on the shooting script, and the film licence has

a very clear stamp saying that they received all the versions of the scripts that we sent them, including the shooting script, which was the script that we ended up making into a film and editing and making the film that we had. so i feel like it's a bit untrue. alright, so that's your side of the argument. but it is still the controversy, you know, some manifestations to it. another one is the spokeswoman for the kenya film and classification board, nelly muluku, says that it is a harebrained scheme by foreigners funding film producers in kenya to promote homosexuality in the name of equality and inclusion. this will be exposed and strongly resisted. i mean, do you feel that there's any credence to that kind of criticism, that you're making films somehow to a western agenda? absolutely not. i think that what i feel is un—african, is homophobia. homophobia is un—african because we, as a continent and as a country,

have always been made up of diverse people, diverse societies and diverse cultures and some of those cultures and some of those people have been homosexual, notjust now, but in the past and there's recorded history of that in many different forms. so, i think that to say that it is a western agenda is incorrect, and also, it's belittling. but do you feel that your film does undermine the sensibilities of the kenyan people? how could it... because that's what the board says, that you do. well, i disagreed with the board on that side, because how could it? if we ask them for an 18 rating so that people can watch a film, that doesn't mean that when they walk out of the film, they will be gay as a result of watching it, nor does it mean that they're promoting in any — in the same way that from a whisper

didn't promote terrorism. but did you accept foreign funding for making this film? i have never — unfortunately, i have never been in the position to accept kenyan funding for any of the films that i've made, because kenya's a very small film economy that is still growing, and that's what we're working on — we're working on being able to prove that by making films and by them opening in theatres, that we have a business model that we can then use to be able to say, "yes, please" to kenyan funding, both public and private. but, unfortunately, we were not in that position, so, yes, we do get money, but for all films — i actually don't know a single kenyan feature film that has done well internationally that has only been based on localfunding. and that doesn't result in, as the chairman of the film board, ezekiel mutua, says your foreign masters have ruined their countries and now they want to use a few characters to introduce that filth here in kenya. i mean, that's his view, that's what he's saying. so, i mean, there is this sense now, this perception that you might be doing the bidding of foreign funding agency agenda. but what's actually more curious

is that anti—homosexuality laws came in with colonialism. they were introduced in the late 1900s! before that, the indigenous african people and the indigenous kenyan people did not have laws against homosexuality. so i actually propose the law itself is what is foreign. but you knew that this content would offend sensibilities in kenya, yet you pressed ahead. i mean, just why did you want to make a film about gay love? because you yourself, you're not gay, you have a partner, you have two children. so why did you feel that this was an important topic that you wanted to tackle? first, it came out of imagination, it came as a result of reading a story, beautiful, beautifulshort story that won the caine prize in 2007 called jambula tree by monica arac de nyeko. the ugandan writer. absolutely. and that book itself was not banned. so we wanted to create a story based on modern african literature, and when i started to look for stories that i wanted to tell,

i started to look for love stories, and this was the most resounding love story i found at the time and this is the story that i wanted to tell because more than anything, i think that it is high time that we had more love stories coming out of the continent. so, it's about thwarted love, essentially. is that what it's about for you? absolutely. i mean, as i said, i quoted the chairman of the board, ezekiel mutua, but he had previously really applauded you. he described you as a goddess in the kenyan film industry, and now he's saying these things about you. i mean, do you feel that this film has dealt you a reputational blow in kenya ? yep, i think that it's very unfortunate that the head of the kenya film classification board went out of his way to say things that i feel were rather mean—spirited and attacked my personality and my character. having praised you prior to that. exactly. complete change. exactly. however, i did not make the film for him, and i didn't make the film for everybody.

i made the film because it's important to be able to have a voice. that's why we're artists. we have the right to freedom of expression. but you've said it took seven years to make rafiki because we had to raise funds for the film, besides caring for my loving husband and our two children, your 5—year—old son and 3—year—old daughter. but this ban has brought a loss of sponsors for you, a loss of revenue. i mean, has it been worth it? i think that any film that you make that you truly believe in, and any story that tells about human nature is absolutely worth it, and i would never change it for anything, and i have a very supportive husband, i have very supportive children, i have supportive parents and parents—in—law who know that my voice is important and who support that. and for me, having that network of friends and family is the most important thing. vice president of kenya william ruto has said there's no room for gays in kenya. charles kanjama, a lawyerfor the christian professional forum, says we consider gay people enemies of the natural family.

about 36 of 53 commonwealth countries of whom many of them are african criminalise homosexuality. how confident are you that we will see a changing view in kenya about lg bt rights? we're already seeing a changing view. there is currently a case in court that is challenging the penal code against homosexuality, so we are seeing changes and we know that we have, regardless of whether or not we want to acknowledge it, there are members of the lgbt immunity who live to acknowledge it, there are members of the lgbt community who live within the continent, who live in kenya, who live in uganda, who live in tanzania. you cannot — laws will not change the nature of a person. so, do you think kenya could deliver an upset and become the second country after south africa on the continent to legalise gay rights? i think that the fight currently is, yes, is to say that people should not be discriminated because of their sexual orientation and the right to privacy is theirs and theirs alone, and the government has no space

trying to enforce the law against carnal knowledge against the order of nature, because in order to prove it, you would have to disrespect their right to privacy. you say this taps into a wider debate about freedom of speech, and there have been concerns in kenya about an erosion of freedom of speech and the free flow of information, particularly in the light of, you know, highly disputed elections, as we've seen in recent months. how worried are you about the issue of freedom of speech in kenya? i'm extremely worried about freedom of speech and freedom of expression at the moment, because it feels like there has been an onslaught against not only artists, but also content that is not in keeping with what is considered the norms and values, but nobody, including the constitution, has defined what the kenyan norms and values are, so i don't feel it's up to individuals to make themselves the moral police,

to decide on behalf of a population of people what norms and values are. and this new law, which has been signed by uhuru kenyatta that outlaws abuse on social media ostensibly, but which critics say could be exploited to repress civil liberties — is that a damaging thing that has happened now? well, i believe in the spirit of it, i truly believe in the spirit of it, because people shouldn't be bullied in the spaces, in any space that they're in. however, i think that the law needs to be — or the bill needs to be more curtailed and it needs to be more specific so that it actually addresses the issues and doesn't kill all freedom of expression orfreedom of speech in the process. finally and briefly, wanuri kahiu, do you believe you really can change the narrative on africa to a wider audience? many africans still believe it is overwhelmingly a very negative picture that's put out there. absolutely. i wouldn't do it if i couldn't — if i didn't believe it. i believe that we are joyful and we are radically hopeful people and i challenge anybody who says otherwise and i will continue to do

it through the work that i do and through the images that we create as afrobubblegum people. wanuri kahiu, thank you very much indeed for coming on hardtalk. thank you. it's such a pleasure. thank you. hello there. 0ver recent days we seen real contrasts in the weather. this was the scene as the sun set on thursday evening. a little bit of shower we

rain through the day on saturday. call a coming rain through the day on saturday. calla coming in rain through the day on saturday. call a coming in from the north—west, part of northern ireland and scotland meanwhile the warm flow ofairfrom and scotland meanwhile the warm flow of airfrom the and scotland meanwhile the warm flow of air from the south is affecting england and wales as well. on friday, some sharp outbreaks of rain to parts of north wales, the all of man, north of england and parts of southern scotland as well showers across the east of scotland. dry in the west. further south, with the sunshine, we will see the hottest of the weather. top temperatures are likely to reach 32 degrees in the south of england. further north, a different field to the weather. as we head through friday evening and

overnight into saturday, showery rain clearing off to the east. most of us temperatures between 12— 19 degrees on saturday morning. heading through the weekend, building from the west. dry from much of the country. the chance of a few showers in some parts of the country. further south, vera skies, light winds and it will feel quite warm and muggy. saturday afternoon, temperatures around 29 degrees. for the north, typically around 19 to perhaps 21 celsius. a similar picture through the day on sunday. lots of dry weather. the chance of more rain working through the western isles. most other places looking dry. top temperatures around

18 degrees in aberdeen to around 29 in london. through monday and tuesday. dry through most of the country. bye—bye. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is duncan golestani. our top stories: the big announcement zimbabwe's been waiting for. emmerson mnangagwa is declared the new president, but can he heal a divided nation? russia remains a threat to american democracy — the stark message from president trump's national security team. we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by russia to try and weaken and divide the united states. apple is valued at $1 trillion, making it worth more than many of the world's

major economies. and they're celebrating now — but these lottery winners saw their ticket ripped up as they were about to claim