How Do You Make Someone Gay? Africa Bans Gay Film
NAIROBI – “How do you make someone gay?”
Kenyan filmmaker Jim Chuchu kept an incredulous smile on his face when that rhetorical question came up recently in a discussion of “Stories of our lives” the first film that openly addresses the issue of homophobia in Kenya.
Chuchu and his team were well aware before shooting began that a movie discussing homosexuals’ problems in Kenya and Africa would be regarded as crossing a red line.
As was expected, the movie was banned from public screening under the pretext that it promotes homosexuality.
The moviemaker was not surprised. “It is a work that has never been presented before, so many people said that it was going to be banned, and making the movie was the only way to find out.”
The international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, LGBT, has protested for years against laws in 38 sub- Saharan countries that criminalize non-heterosexual relationships with punishments that could include the death sentence.
In light of this, Chuchu said “there are few movies made by African directors that tackle this issue and we wanted to be a part of this.”
While U.S. documentaries depicts the lives of LGBT in Ugandan society, Nigeria’s prolific Nollywood cinema, which churns out around 1000 movies annually, has not tackled homosexuality in all but three movies, two of which deal with pedophilia and devil worship.
“Stories of our Lives” is the first film to deal with the life of a group of homosexuals who face punishments in Kenya up to 14 years in prison for their sexual orientation.
The film was screened for the first time last September at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was received with considerable praise.
But that was not enough for the Kenya Film Classification Board to change its mind and allow it to be shown to the public, insisting that it “promotes homosexuality, which is contrary to our national norms and values”.
Actors, whose identities remain concealed portray real life stories about the hostility faced by the LGBT community on daily basis in Kenya and proving, according to Chuchu, that the Board “is detached from reality.”
Chuchu ridiculed the decision by saying, “for a person to be homosexual is not like joining the Army or following a fashion trend. You do not go out on the streets and suddenly you become gay!”
The director said that he would like to know the rules that are seem to be violated by his film, warning that “the way society deals with its minorities speaks for itself”.
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