One World Romania documentary festival: Call me Kuchu

The interruption of a screening of The Kids Are All Right in Bucharest by homophobic thugs last month was a reminder that gay people still face prejudice and discrimination in modern day Romania. In Uganda, they face imprisonment and potentially state execution. A bill is currently going through the country’s legal system that sought to make what it terms “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by death. The media outs gay people and publishes their addresses; a tabloid newspaper printed the words “hang them” on the front cover with one such exposé.

Under such horrendous conditions, it would be understandable if gay Ugandans simply stayed in the closet, and indeed many do. But a small group of activists has chosen the other path: to live openly, regardless of the difficulties it brings them. They stand up to their oppressors and campaign against the odious bill and for greater rights for LGBT people, under the rallying cry “a luta continua” (Portuguese for the struggle continues). Call Me Kuchu (a Ugandan word for homosexual) tells the moving and inspiring story of these individuals, who don’t let experiences such as rape and forced abortion, among the more prosaic travails of abuse and alienation, cow them.

While anti-gay laws have long been on the statute in Uganda – a colonial legacy from Western countries such as the UK that have long repealed them and are now moving to legalize same-sex marriage – the filmmakers attribute a recent ratcheting up of hostility to evangelical preachers from the US who, dismayed by the growing tolerance of the LGBT community in their home country, are targeting the African nation with zealous public addresses that seek to whip up local homophobia.

Despite the vile prejudice on view, documentary makers Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall take an even-handed approach: though their focus and implicit sympathies lie with the activists, they give ample screen time to the anti-gay journalists and politicians who support the bill and outing campaigns, and simply let them state their views.

Part way through the documentary comes a shocking development that brings home the terrible outcome of letting prejudice and hatred fester unchallenged. This intensifies the story’s emotional punch, though even without this incident the filmmakers have already eloquently and reasonably made their point.

In an ideal world, Call Me Kuchu would be required viewing in all high schools. In a truly ideal world, of course, such a documentary would not need to be made. But while there is little hope that the American hate preachers and Ugandan homophobes portrayed here will change their views, nobody who comes to this film with an open mind can fail to be moved by the struggle of these brave and decent individuals, who endure fear, insults and violence because they have the temerity to be themselves. Slowly, the ending hints, progress is being made. A luta continua.

Debbie Stowe