IDAHOT* Jena: Filmabend “Call me Kuchu”

Trail­er

ABOUT THE FILM

In Ugan­da, a new bill threat­ens to make homo­sex­u­al­i­ty pun­ish­able by death. David Kato, Uganda’s first open­ly gay man, and retired Angli­can Bish­op Christo­pher Seny­on­jo work against the clock to defeat state-sanc­tioned homo­pho­bia 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.

Pho­tog­ra­phy © 2010 Kather­ine Fair­fax Wright

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 Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies who have chris­tened Ugan­da ground zero in their war on the “homo­sex­u­al agen­da,” the bill awaits debate in Uganda’s Par­lia­ment.

While most reli­gious lead­ers in Ugan­da sup­port the Bill, one lone voice from the Church is will­ing to speak out against it: Bish­op Christo­pher Seny­on­jo, a pur­ple-robed sage who has been expelled from the Angli­can Church of Ugan­da for his the­o­log­i­cal defense of Uganda’s LGBT com­mu­ni­ty. Armed with a PhD in human sex­u­al­i­ty and a thor­ough under­stand­ing of Bib­li­cal scrip­ture, this octo­ge­nar­i­an dogged­ly con­tin­ues his work to estab­lish a kuchu coun­sel­ing cen­ter and safe house in Kam­pala.

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, the unthink­able hap­pens: David is bru­tal­ly mur­dered in his home. His death sends shock waves around the world, and leaves the Bish­op and 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, and whose mem­o­ry has inspired a new gen­er­a­tion of human rights advo­cates.