A DOCUMENTARY FILM BY KATHERINE FAIRFAX WRIGHT & MALIKA ZOUHALI-WORRALL
In Uganda, a new bill threatens to make homosexuality punishable by death. David Kato – Uganda’s first openly gay man – and his fellow activists work against the clock to defeat the legislation while combatting vicious persecution in their daily lives. But no one is prepared for the brutal murder that shakes their movement to its core and sends shock waves around the world.
SYNOPSIS:
In an unmarked office at the end of a dirt track, veteran activist David Kato labors to repeal Uganda’s homophobic laws and liberate his fellow lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender men and women, or “kuchus.” But David’s formidable task just became much more difficult. A new “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” proposes death for HIV-positive gay men, and prison for anyone who fails to turn in a known homosexual. Inspired by American evangelicals who have christened Uganda ground zero in their war on the “homosexual agenda,” the bill awaits debate in Uganda’s Parliament. Meanwhile, local newspapers have begun outing kuchus with vicious fervor under headlines such as: “HOMO TERROR! We Name and Shame Top Gays in the City.”
David, Uganda’s first openly gay man, is one of the few who dare to publicly protest state-sanctioned homophobia. Working with an idiosyncratic clan of fellow activists, David fights Uganda’s government and tabloids in the courts, on television, and at the United Nations. Because, he insists, “if we keep on hiding, they will say we’re not here.”
But one year into filming CALL ME KUCHU and just three weeks after a landmark legal victory, on January 26, 2011, the unthinkable happens: David is brutally murdered in his home. His death sends shock waves around the world, and leaves Kampala’s kuchus traumatized and seeking answers for a way forward.
With unprecedented access, CALL ME KUCHU depicts the last year in the life of a courageous, quick-witted and steadfast man whose wisdom and achievements were not fully recognized until after his death. While heartbreaking, the documentary traces a narrative that takes the viewer beyond the chronicle of victimization depicted in international news media: it tells the nuanced story of David and Kampala’s kuchus as they work to change their fate, and that of other kuchus across Africa.
A story told in his words, David Kato’s final testimony lives on in this film, while his work is continued by the fellow activists he left behind.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
During our first days in Kampala, Member of Parliament David Bahati told us: “There is no longer a debate in Uganda as to whether homosexuality is right or not – it is not.” We were tempted to believe him. State-sanctioned homophobia was gaining momentum across the African continent, with a recent volley of attempts to pass homophobic laws and arrest LGBT people in countries from Senegal to Burundi.
But during that first week in Uganda we also met David Kato. Initially, he played something of a fixer, our main liaison with the LGBT, or “kuchu” community. We soon realized, however, that the man known as the “grandfather of the kuchus” was one of the most outspoken and inspired activists in East Africa. The more time we spent documenting his work, the more evident it became that, contrary to the M.P.’s claim, David and his fellow activists were, in fact, generating a public debate in Uganda that was shaking the foundations of the country’s discriminatory status quo and drawing international attention. Uganda, it seemed, had become a frontier in the global battle for LGBT rights.
Over the course of two years, we documented the daily lives and courageous work of David and his fellow kuchus. We were there when David appeared on television to call for an end to LGBT persecution, we were there when David won his case against gay-bashing tabloid Rolling Stone, and we were there during David’s rare moments of respite, when he’d kick back, open a beer and tend to his small farm.
So David’s brutal murder in January 2011 came as a terrible shock to us both. Nonetheless, we felt compelled to continue filming in order to document the impact of his death on the tight-knit community, as well as the courageous efforts of Kampala’s kuchus to continue his astounding work.
In telling this crucial story, we explore the parodox of democracy in a country where a judiciary recognizes the civil rights of individual kuchus, yet the popular vote and daily violence threaten to eradicate those rights altogether. We also examine the nature and consequences of profound religious faith, as expressed both by American and Ugandan evangelical leaders, as well as the LGBT community and its allies.
But perhaps most consequential to us both is that this portrait depicts the David Kato we knew, and David Kato as he saw himself – before he was a mythologized activist, or just as he was becoming one.
FILM SUBJECTS:
DAVID
In public, David is passionate, relentless, fiercely intelligent. In private, at home on his small farm, a charismatic yet vulnerable individual emerges: a man with a sharp sense of humor and a deep-seated fear of sleeping alone at night. In those rare moments away from the daily toil of his activism, David daydreams about one day building a gay village on his land, where Kampala’s kuchus can live and work in solidarity.
NAOME
A warm-hearted and motherly activist who has experienced more than her fair share of persecution, Naome is David’s closest friend and an equally gutsy advocate in Uganda’s fledgling LGBT rights movement.
BISHOP SENYONJO
Bishop Senyonjo has been expelled from the Anglican Church of Uganda for his theological defense of Uganda’s LGBT community. Nonetheless, armed with a PhD in human sexuality and a thorough understanding of Biblical scripture, this purple-robed sage doggedly continues his work to establish a kuchu counseling center and safe house.
STOSH
After enduring a “corrective” rape at a young age, Stosh spent years living lonely, confused, suicidal. But the female-to-male transman found solace in Kampala’s tight-knit LGBT community.
LONGJONES
An LGBT counselor, Longjones has always shied away from the limelight of his sexual orientation. But in the wake of David’s death, Longjones feels compelled to sustain the veteran activist’s crusade for human rights, and steps forward to become one of the public faces of kuchu activism in Uganda.
[CALL ME KUCHU WEBSITE]