Call Me Kuchu 2012

Meet the very brave and inspiring LGBT-rights activists in Uganda who are fighting a tide of homophobia driven by imported evangelism, political opportunism and tabloid scandal. At the heart of this vital documentary is veteran activist David Kato. Uganda’s first openly gay man, David is something of a godfather to the kuchus, as the Ugandan LGBT community call themselves. The film follows David’s opposition to draconian new anti-homosexuality laws, which propose the death penalty for HIV-positive gay men, and his court battle with a sleazy tabloid newspaper which specialises in outing kuchus with lurid headlines like “Homo Terror!”. — MM.

“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’… But David showed us a different reality… 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.” — Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall