CALL ME KUCHU (Katherine Fairfax Wright, Malika Zouhali-Worrall). 87 minutes. Some subtitles. Opens Friday (August 16) at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. For times, see listings. Rating: NNNN
National government considers bill to execute gays and imprison those who fail to report the queers they know: sounds like the premise for a dystopic feature. But it’s the backstory of Call Me Kuchu, an exceptional documentary about Uganda’s push to make being gay a capital offence.
Filmmakers Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall present the political context – Christian zealots, inspired by their American counterparts who are losing the anti-queer battle in their own country, ratchet up the anti-gay panic.
But the soul of the movie is the charming and charismatic gay rights activist David Kato, who energizes his fellow activists as they battle forces trying to demonize them to death – literally. While parliament ponders its devastating legislation, Kato leads a legal challenge against Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone (obviously no connection to out gay Jann Wenner’s American mag), which is naming gays under the headline “Hang them.” Interviews with the homophobic editor are positively chilling.
A shattering act of violence two-thirds into the doc ups the stakes dramatically – if you can imagine them getting any higher. But even the shock of that event cannot eclipse the inspirational power of this portrait of a courageous LGBT community partying, organizing, laughing and weeping as it fights for its life.
