In 2009, a bill was proposed in the Ugandan parliament that would outlaw homosexuality, making the offense punishable by death. In response, the newspaper The Rolling Stone began outing members of the LGBT community with the headline “Hang Them.” The LGBT activist David Kato, the first openly gay man in the rapidly anti-gay nation of Uganda, took the publication to court to prevent them from further printing the names and pictures of gay people — and won. Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worral’s remarkable documentary Call Me Kuchu chronicles the brave battles of Kato and his comrades, as they very publicly seek to protect […]
by Nick Dawson on Jun 14, 2013The strength of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival is also its weakness. This year’s 23rd edition boasts 16 doc and fiction flicks from 12 countries – yet most fall firmly in the category of solid ITVS fare (in fact, only three are narrative features). Like with the agribusiness detailed in Micha X. Peled’s Bitter Seeds, about the epidemic of farmer suicides in India, variety is often an illusion – especially when U.S. or U.S. co-productions are in the majority. This is another way of saying that, yes, the chances of seeing a stinker at HRWFF are slim, but there’s […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jun 7, 2012The opening night movie of the Los Angeles Film Festival — Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love — was announced three weeks ago (along with screenings of Sundance winners Middle of Nowhere and Beasts of the Southern Wild), but today the rest of the line-up was unveiled, with the headline news being that Steven Soderbergh’s male stripper romp, Magic Mike, starring Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey, will close out the June fest. In the narrative competition, there are notable entries from Cory McAbee (The American Astronaut), Jared Moshé (a familiar name as a producer, making his first film as director), […]
by Nick Dawson on May 1, 2012It’s opening night of the 62nd Berlinale, and we’re tottering down the gleaming red carpet, tipsy with exhaustion after a marathon three-week final push to finish our documentary Call Me Kuchu for its world premiere at the festival. The black tie affair has women dripping in mink and jewels, and men tightly bound in waistcoats and cummerbunds. Just 48 hours prior, we were dripping in sweat and bound by a serious time crunch as we raced to the airport, gripping two newly-minted HDCAMs, still toasty-warm from the tape deck. Our run at the Berlinale marks the culmination of two years documenting the work […]
by Malika Zouhali-Worrall and Katy Fairfax Wright on Feb 17, 2012