[3][4] In January 2025, Wanuri, was announced as one of the jurors for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, alongside Ava Cahen and Daniel Kaluuya.

[10] In an interview with Vogue Italia, the filmmaker describes herself as a black sheep to her conservative parents; her mother is a doctor and her father a businessman.

In her 2014 TED talk titled No More Labels, Kahiu mentions that growing up in Kenya, she didn't encounter a lot of love stories coming from Africa.

[2] Kahiu began her filmmaking career by interning for F. Gary Gray's office, which allowed her to work on the production of his 2003 film The Italian Job (2003).

As Dennis Harvey writes in his review for the Daily Variety, the “interactions between the young woman and older man let both come to terms with a painful past they were helpless to prevent”.

[12] According to literature scholar Mich Nyawalo, Pumzi (2009) challenges the pessimistic representation of African realities and futures by using the aesthetics of Africanfuturism to demonstrate African-led creativity.

[19] Mitch Nyawalo argues that Pumzi's destruction parallels the economic devastation in the aftermath of the World Bank's structural adjustment programs.

The film also displays an "ecofemninst critical posture" where women are most affected by environment devastation but also are at the forefront of bettering their societies.

[20] Art scholar Omar Kholeif writes about Pumzi's interpellation of Western understandings of Africa: "Kahiu's film poses a poignant allegory in that it espouses an indirect commentary on imperial essentialism of the superficial Other.

This is achieved by correlating the disenchantment that gave rise to science fiction with the perceived notions of Africa as a barren and impoverished social and geographic entity.

[19] African Studies scholar MaryEllen Higgins describes the film's "untraceable sound" suggesting "motion...without any visually perceivable movement" that "breaks the quiet stillness of a devastated, dead landscape".

Homosexuality in Africa has long been debated, but Kahiu tells Olivier Barlet that homophobia is not of the spirit of Ubuntu since it marginalizes people in the community.

Although the way they interact with each other and openly showcase their fondness for one another completely challenges heteronormativity, Kahiu juxtaposes that with the conservative, narrow-minded mindset of the people around them.

In her interview with Olivier Barlet, Kahiu emphasizes the importance of the rejection of labels through her work, as a way of opposing the heteronormative world we live in.

[1] Despite being an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, Kahiu still struggles to get recognition in her own country, due to her progressive way of thinking that contradicts societal norms.

However, after the production had wrapped, the Classification Board required Kahiu to change the ending and make it “more remorseful”, because they felt it was “too hopeful”, in order to avoid having the film banned.

In an interview with Quartz, Kahiu says that creating images for African children is important to correct "being written out of our histories" and to hope for a future Africa.

[29] In June 2019, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, an event widely considered a watershed moment in the modern LGBTQ rights movement, Queerty named her one of the Pride50 "trailblazing individuals who actively ensure society remains moving towards equality, acceptance and dignity for all queer people".

[30] In April 2019, Kahiu and Millie Bobby Brown teamed up for a film adaptation of the YA novel The Thing About Jellyfish for Universal Studios.

[31] Kahiu is set to direct the film, which will be produced by Gigi Pritzker and Rachel Shane of MWM Studios, Bruna Papandrea, and Reese Witherspoon.

[32] Wanuri Kahiu is also among writers who will be working on the adaptation of Octavia Butler novel, Wild Seed into a film, in a project by Amazon.

[34] In July 2020, it was announced that Wanuri Kahiu would direct the film adaptation of the Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens stage musical Once on This Island for Walt Disney Pictures and Marc Platt Productions from a screenplay by Jocelyn Bioh.

She positions Africa as an inherently futuristic space, one that disrupts and does away with Western binaries surrounding technology, nature, and linear time.

In Pumzi, Kahiu challenges the pessimistic representation of African realities and futures by using the aesthetics of Afrofutirism to demonstrate African-led creativity.

[17] Furthermore, in an interview with Variety, Kahiu says she enjoys the genre of sci-fi for its "flexibility" and "the ability to use metaphors to say a lot more challenging things about the politics or social climate in Africa.