Since homosexuality is illegal in Kenya, the lesbian love story was banned by the country's film classification board, but the director won a week's suspension of the ban in September of 2018 from the Kenyan high Court, so that locals could see it in theatres there for a brief period.
The title means "friend" in the Kiswahili language and indicates the need in an intolerant society to disguise a same sex romance as a platonic friendship.
For the director, it was important to show the modernity and dynamism of Nairobi, where cultural life is growing more and more for and by the younger generation.
It is inspired by Ugandan Monica Arac de Nyeko's 2007 Caine Prize-winning short story "Jambula Tree".
The film was importantly co-financed by the European Union through its EU-ACP Culture Plus Programme.