Kenya’s creative awards system has a problem. It is a structural problem, and it is not new. It is something that has been spoken about for years, often behind closed doors and in hushed tones, because if there is one thing the industry has learnt to do, it is to hide its grievances.
Now we cannot speak for the music industry – we’re not even sure it currently has any functioning awards body – but we can speak to film, television and theatre, and how the awards system is structurally flawed, undermining the most basic function of an award: to recognise and celebrate merit.
We wrote a version of this piece two years ago. It wasn’t published because the Kalasha Awards got delayed, then cancelled, then delayed again. The concerns it raised, however, have not gone away. They’ve only calcified.
After that hiatus, and a promise to return bigger and better, the nominees for the 14th Kalasha International Film and TV Awards were unveiled on 25 March 2026 at an event held at Anga Cinema, Panari. Were we to nitpick, we would suggest that the Kenya Film Commission (KFC) might consider saving this money in future editions, and reallocating it elsewhere, and perhaps opting for a simple, well-produced online unveiling, where a charming host and a camera would suffice. But let’s focus on the core issues at hand.
At the unveiling, KFC CEO Timothy Owase spoke. KFC Board Chair Sudi Wandabusi spoke. Academy Chairperson Ledama Sempele spoke, noting that the 2026 submissions demonstrate that Kenyan filmmakers “continue to invest effort in producing quality work.” Everyone spoke but no one explained anything, and by the end of it, there were more questions than answers.
What criteria informed these nominations? Why were short films dominating across film categories, eclipsing features? Is it because enough features were not submitted? If so, why? And why does public voting still feature in an award that is meant to recognise merit?
Let’s start with the most glaring structural problem in the entire enterprise:shorts are competing against features in almost every category. Take Best Lead Actor for instance. Juma Mdoe in *Sukari,*Brian Furaha in Owadwa, Jeff Omondi in Kanairo and Elsaphan Njora in Transaction (all short films) sit in the same category as Alexander Karim in The Dog, Joe Kinyua in She Gets Me and Bruce Makau in 2 Asunder which are features.
It’s the same story across the other acting categories, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and all the technical categories, where films of wildly different lengths, scopes and structural demands are evaluated against each other as though they exist in the same creative framework. They do not.
A short and a feature are fundamentally different disciplines. This is very basic craft logic, something one would expect a jury of film professionals to have flagged on the first day of jury work. Sustaining a character arc across ninety minutes of screen time is not the same task as compressing an emotional journey into twenty, fifteen or even fewer minutes.
Writing a feature-length screenplay requires managing subplots, tonal consistency, structural acts, and narrative momentum in ways a short film does not have to contend with. A cinematographer working on a short film can achieve visual polish within a tightly controlled production window; a feature DP must sustain that quality across weeks of shooting, varying locations and conditions that cannot always be controlled.
Editors cutting a ten-minute film are solving a different puzzle than those cutting a ninety-minute feature. Grouping them together creates an unfair and incoherent competition. The jury must decide: do we reward the concentrated intensity of the short or the sustained complexity of the feature? – a choice that has no consistent basis.
Without a clear standard, outcomes will inevitably be inconsistent from year to year, category to category, and judge to judge. That’s more than just a minor administrative issue. It is the foundational problem that invalidates the comparative logic on which the Kalasha Awards are supposed to rest.
We reached out to the Kenya Film Commission for clarification. Their response, which was not attributed to any individual, stated:
“The current category structure was informed by consultations with a focus group comprising industry experts and practitioners engaged by the Commission during the awards framework review. The recommendation was to prioritise quality and craft excellence over runtime, allowing productions of varying lengths to compete on artistic and technical merit. This approach supports inclusivity while strengthening competition by recognising outstanding achievement regardless of format duration.”
KFC’s position, particularly in craft and performance categories, is that these awards assess individual elements of filmmaking rather than film length– thatdirecting, acting, cinematography and the rest should be judged on execution, creativity and impact, regardless of duration.
It is a position that sounds coherent enough, and one no doubt arrived at in good faith. It is also, we would argue, incorrect.
The claim that craft exists independently of context, that a performance can be assessed for execution and impact without reference to the structural demands placed upon it, reduces filmmaking to a collection of isolated technical acts rather than a cumulative discipline. A five-minute sprint and a marathon both require running. They do not require the same thing of the runner.
The focus group’s recommendation, whatever its merits, does not resolve the evaluative contradiction at the heart of the system.
No award worth its name does this. In a more serious industry, with a more serious awards body, short films have their own categories, their own jury considerations, their own standards of excellence – because they exist within their own discipline. The fact that the Kalasha Awards collapse them into a single framework is evidence that the categories were not designed with rigorous evaluation criteria in mind.
They may not complain about it loudly, but speak to any filmmaker with a feature in these categories – we have spoken to a few – and they will tell you how nonsensical and retrogressive it is to be grouped alongside short films. No filmmaker who understands the demands of the craft believes this is a fair comparison. It is disingenuous to filmmaking itself.
And their discontent is valid because here’s what that costs the industry: filmmakers who have spent years and significant resources building a feature cannot properly contextualise where they stand against their peers. When Nawior The Dog competes against a fifteen-minute short, what does a nomination even mean? What does a loss mean? What does a win even mean? The trophy becomes harder to read because the system that produced the outcome is broken.
The other fundamental structural issue with the Kalasha Awards is the inclusion of public voting in key categories that should be determined solely by a qualified jury. In this year’s awards, 18 of the 40 categories are open to public vote, conducted via a Google Form. Not a dedicated platform. Not a verified system with meaningful safeguards. A Google Form.
It appears this is KFC’s response to earlier concerns about the previous voting system, which required users to download the StarTimes app. Yet the fact that, in 2026, an established body like KFC has yet to implement a permanent, secure voting system within its own platform is concerning.
Back to the crux of the matter: the categories open to public voting include all acting categories in both film and television, as well as Best Feature Film, Best Documentary, Best Animation, Best TV Drama and People’s Choice, among others. With the exception of People’s Choice *–*which is, by design, meant to reflect audience preference *–*these are not peripheral categories. Best Lead Actor/Actress, Best TV and Best Feature Film are the centrepieces of any film and TV awards.
Handing them to the public does not democratise the process. It instead replaces craft evaluation with a social media mobilisation exercise, turning these categories into a popularity contest where reach and fan engagement begin to matter more than the work itself. Already, across Instagram, actors, filmmakers and production houses are circulating posters soliciting Kalasha Awards votes. Some of these posts are even sponsored.
Film and television are nuanced disciplines, developed over years of study and practice.The average viewer is not equipped to assess the finer demands of performance, direction or craft in the way trained professionals are. That is precisely why such decisions are typically entrusted to a jury with relevant expertise.
KFC has clarified the weighting mechanism to Sinema Focus: for the 2026 awards, and we would assume, future editions, public voting contributes 5% of the final score, while jury evaluation accounts for the remaining 95%, a noticeable improvement from the previous 30–70 split.
“The public vote functions as a supplementary audience appreciation indicator rather than a determinant of outcomes. The weighted system ensures that professional assessment remains primary while still incorporating audience engagement as part of the awards experience. However, for the viewer’s choice awards the determinant metric is based on 100% public voting,” the Commission stated.
On paper, this is a defensible model. But here is what KFC and the Kalasha Awards decision-makers may be overlooking: that 5% can become significant when an actor with a million followers is competing against one with 20,000 or less. It becomes a lot when a popular show or actor has everything at their disposal to rally their fanbase and make that margin count – and KFC need not look further than actors’, filmmakers’ and production houses’ current Instagram activity to see the level of mobilisation. That 5% can act as a tie-breaker, giving an unfair advantage to popular shows and stars over their less visible counterparts.
And the Kalasha Awards are not the only culprits. The Kenya Theatre Awards allow public voting across almost all their categories, with only a few exceptions in special categories.The Women in Film Awards (WIFA) *–*another troubled awards body that several women in the industry have privately expressed frustrations about *–*also allows public voting across all its categories, not only to select winners but at the initial nomination stage as well.
The argument made internally – and we have heard versions of it – is that without a public-facing voting component, awards like the Kalasha struggle to attract the commercial and public interest that keeps them alive. It is an honest argument. It is also a damning one.An awards show whose existence depends on compromising its own evaluative integrity is one that must seriously define its mandate within the industry it serves.
Then there is the question of the jury, and more specifically, how that jury is deployed. KFC did publish the names of its nomination academy, along with broad professional titles. Where it falters is how that expertise is applied across categories.
Are jurors assigned to evaluate work within their specific areas of competence, or is the same panel expected to assess feature films, series, documentaries, animation and technical categories in equal measure? KFC’s response suggests it’s the latter. Rather than assigning jurors within their areas of specialization, the Commission takes what it describes as a “holistic” approach:
*“*Rather than limiting jurors strictly to individual specialisations, the selected jury members are deemed capable of evaluating submissions across all categories based on their extensive professional experience and understanding of filmmaking as a collaborative and interdisciplinary process. This approach ensures balanced assessment, consistency in evaluation standards, and a comprehensive appreciation of each production’s overall artistic and technical merit.”
Film, television, documentary and animation are distinct disciplines. So are the crafts within them. Evaluating a documentary is not the same as evaluating a narrative feature. Assessing animation requires a different framework from assessing live-action performance. These are not interchangeable skill sets, and to treat them as such undermines the very distinction that defines the craft.
Therefore, the credibility of the evaluation process comes into question, not because the individuals lack experience, but because the system does not demonstrate that their expertise is being applied where it is most relevant.
It raises further questions about how outcomes are arrived at. Why, for instance, does Prefects, an International Emmy-nominated series, earnonly two nominations against its peers? Or why does the Venice-premiered Memory of Princess Mumbi secure just six? The Commission, however, dismisses international acclaim as “not automatically better,” attributing it instead to “widespread marketing.”
A fair argument. Awards systems should have their own criteria; they are not obligated to ratify the judgments of other bodies. What the response does not address, however, is how those criteria are constituted, what they weigh, or how this information can be accessed by the filmmakers being evaluated.
That’s not to say that most credible awards systems publish their scoring metrics, but they do provide enough clarity around process and expertise for participants to understand how decisions are made.
When there’s no baseline of transparency in such serious matters, the industry and those who operate within it create their own different versions of the “truth.” In the process, trust in institutions like KFC and the Kalasha Awards is diluted. When some filmmakers and actors choose not to participate in your awards because they have lost trust in the system, then it’s time for some tough questions and even tougher decisions.
But it is not all doom and gloom. For starters, the Commission was forthcoming with our queries around the Kalasha Awards, commendably so, especially given that some of our queries have gone unanswered in the past.
Even if it came after the nominees were unveiled, the Commission also publicly
Source: sinemafocus.com