Call Me Kuchu: Documenting The Struggle For Equality In Uganda

This film is now available on DVD and digital platforms—check out Call Me Kuchu for more information!

In late 2009, we received a phone call from Uganda—it was gay activist David Kato, who we’d been speaking with as part of the initial research for our documentary film. David told us that his fears had been realized: a draconian “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” was about to be introduced in Uganda—and we needed to document it.

The film we made over the following two years, Call Me Kuchu, tells David’s story as he fought state and church sanctioned homophobia in the Ugandan courts, on television and at the United Nations.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill that was introduced in 2009 is a truly abhorrent piece of legislation.

It proposes death for HIV-positive gay men, and prison for anyone who fails to turn in a known homosexual. But perhaps most shocking to Americans is the fact that the Ugandan legislators who wrote the bill appear to have been directly influenced by a group of American evangelicals, including Scott Lively and Lou Engle, who had visited Uganda and christened it “ground zero” in their international war on the “homosexual agenda.” Indeed, we filmed one of Engle’s prayer rallies in Kampala, during which he openly praised the government for its “righteousness” in acting to restrain the harmful forces of homosexuality.

As a result, most Ugandan religious leaders publicly supported the Bill—in fact, it would have been impossible to introduce the Bill in Parliament without the formal support of the country’s Anglican and Catholic churches. But one lone voice from the Church was willing to speak out against it. Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a purple-robed sage, had previously 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 ally doggedly continued his work to protest the bill, and to establish the only LGBT counseling center, chapel and safe house in Kampala.

As the Bishop told us one day: “If we are against the oppressed, they may think God is also against them, which is not true. I will stand for the truth.”

During our filming, we met many kuchus who had rediscovered their Christian faith because of the Bishop’s remarkable work, and become gainful, participatory members of their religious communities. As a result, Call Me Kuchu examines the paradox of a community that is at once both persecuted and consoled by the Christian faith. The film depicts the astounding courage and determination required not only to battle an oppressive government, but also to maintain religious conviction in the face of the contradicting rhetoric of a powerful national church. 

The Bishop was just one of many extraordinary individuals whom David Kato introduced us to as we began to shoot Call Me Kuchu. And it wasn’t long before we realized that David too was remarkable: fiercely intelligent and outspoken, with a biting sense of humor and great courage despite his deep-seated fear of sleeping alone at night. It soon became clear that David was the protagonist of Call Me Kuchu.

But one year into our filming and just three weeks after David achieved a landmark legal victory, the unthinkable happened: David was murdered.

The weeks following David’s death remain among the most challenging of our lives. We witnessed in others and experienced in ourselves the raw and profound pain of losing a loved one, and of losing a community leader. But David’s brutal murder focused our motivations for working on the film: we had always sought to share the stories of Kampala’s kuchus as widely as possible—that sentiment was now far more urgent and personal.

David shared our belief in the power of film to document, educate, and, perhaps most importantly, humanize Kampala’s kuchu movement. So it is with David in mind that over the past year we have worked to bring Call Me Kuchu to more than 100 film festivals worldwide. He undoubtedly would have been proud to hear the audience response to his story, especially the towering, teary-eyed man at a screening in Missouri, who told us that he wished to share the film with his evangelical congregation. “I’m a fat Christian from Missouri,” he said. “And I loved this film.”

It therefore seems quite fitting that this week Call Me Kuchu will be theatrically released in New York and then in Los Angeles. We will be joined in New York by activists Victor Mukasa, Frank Mugisha and Robert Karemire, all close friends and colleagues of David, and members of the Bishop’s congregation. The theatrical release offers an opportunity to honor David and the continuing work of Kampala’s kuchus. 

Call Me Kuchu also reminds us that while Uganda may seem to be on the other side of the world, its connections back to the U.S run deep.

While the situation in Uganda may seem extreme—and the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is still being considered by Parliament there—there are significant analogies and connections that can be made with the US. Uganda, like California, recently amended its constitution to state that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman. Much of the anti-gay rhetoric being used by Ugandan political and religious leaders echoes almost verbatim that which was used by opponents during the early days of the gay rights movement in the US: most notably, the idea that homosexuals can’t reproduce, so they recruit children into homosexuality. And of course, the evangelical fundamentalists such as Lou Engle, who have been shown to have influenced homophobic policies in Uganda, are the very same individuals who continue to play a key role in efforts to prevent gay marriage across the U.S.

What becomes clear in watching Call Me Kuchu is that in order to improve the situation for LGBT communities worldwide, social change must happen not only abroad, but also here in the United States.

Photo courtesy of Call Me Kuchu