The award-wining documentary Call Me Kuchu is now available
on DVD and digital download.
The film documents activist David Kato's fight for gay rights in
Uganda.
Kato, known as Uganda's first openly gay man, was brutally
murdered in his Kampala home on January 26, 2011. He fought to
repeal Uganda's anti-gay laws and liberate his fellow lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender men and women, known as “kuchus.”
Filmmakers Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall
followed Kato as he and his fellow activists fought against passage
of a controversial bill that sought to increase the penalties against
homosexuality in a nation where it is already a crime. The new bill
proposes death under certain circumstances.
While editing the film, Wright and Zouhali-Worrall learned of
Kato's murder.
“We had essentially documented the entire last year of his life,
and since his life was cut short, we had been filming during a time
when he was at the pinnacle of his activism, when his philosophies
and oration were most concrete and well-formulated,”
Zouhali-Worrall
said. “Therefore, both of us felt the responsibility to honor
his life by making the best film we could.”
Call Me Kuchu has won nearly two dozen awards, including
the Teddy Award for best documentary at the Berlin Film Festival. (A
trailer for the film is embedded in the right panel of this page.
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