<p>Call Me Kuchu - Trailer from Call Me Kuchu on Vimeo.</p>
Directed by Katherine Fairfax Wright & Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Official Selection at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival
Winner - Teddy Award for Best Documentary
Winner - Cinema Fairbindet Award
2nd Place - Audience Award
Honorable Mention - Siegessaule Readers Choice Award.
callmekuchu.com
facebook.com/CallMeKuchu
twitter.com/#!/callmekuchu
__________________________
Listen to the Story
'Call Me Kuchu':
Uganda's Secret
Gay Community
Katherine Fairfax Wright/Courtesy of 'Call Me Kuchu'One of the front page stories published by Ugandan newspaper The Rolling Stone, which terrorized the LGBT community.
June 21, 2012When Ugandan lawmakers introduced an anti-homosexuality bill in 2009, it called for the death penalty for "serial offenders." That legislation failed, but a new version was reintroduced in 2012 in an effort to further criminalize same-sex relations in a country where homosexuality is already illegal. The bills have drawn loud and widespread condemnation from much of the international community, particularly after the brutal death of openly gay activist Davdi Kato.
Filmmakers Katherine Fairfax-Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall gained access to Uganda's secretive LGBT community for their documentary film, Call Me Kuchu. The pair follow a group of gay women and men — derogatorily called "Kuchus" — lead by Kato, as he fights to repeal the country's anti-gay laws and as they rail against the ongoing, sometimes violent, persecution.
NPR's Neal Conan wraps up a two-part series on the American Film Institute's Silverdocs Film Festival with Malika Zouhali-Worrall, the producer and co-director of Call Me Kuchu, and one of the film's subjects, John "Long Jones" Abdallah Wambere.
__________________________
They Will Say
We Are Not Here
They Will Say We Are Not Here: The filmmakers Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall explore the motivations, sorrows and dreams of the slain Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato.
GO HERE TO VIEW SHORT DOCUMENTARY ON DAVID KATO
By KATHERINE FAIRFAX WRIGHT and MALIKA ZOUHALI-WORRALL
These are fragments of David Kato, glimpses of a Ugandan activist and friend who – one year ago today – was brutally murdered. These moments offer a perspective on the inner world that David shared with us, a world teeming with passion and relentless determination, good humor and vivid daydreams.
During our first days in Kampala, a member of Parliament told us, “there is no longer a debate in Uganda as to whether homosexuality is right or not – it is not.” From what we knew of the pending Anti-Homosexuality Bill – which proposed death for H.I.V.-positive gay men and prison for anyone who failed to turn in a known homosexual – we were tempted to believe him.
But David showed us a different reality. Initially, he played something of a fixer, our main liaison with the L.G.B.T., 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 real debate in Uganda. Kampala’s kuchus had begun to dismantle the country’s discriminatory status quo, and were working tirelessly to change their fate and that of others across Africa.
Today, as we revisit our memories of David, we remember his fortitude and remarkable legal achievements, boldly guided by his vision of establishing a Ugandan gay village. But perhaps most of all we recall these words, spoken with more logic than defiance: “If we keep on hiding, they will say we are not here."