More than a festival
Out film festival
By Kevin Mwachiro
As co-founder, I don’t want to take credit for that because the universe was busy orchestrating ways to ensure the festival would make a name for itself. The initial poster had an image from Fluorescent Sin, a movie about a Kenyan cross-dresser having a nervous breakdown at Nairobi Railway Station. It was directed by a Kenyan, Amirah Tajdin, and OUT was its first public screening in Kenya. How cool is that? During the same edition, two other Kenyan titles and several films from the continent reflected the diversity of queerness.
Fortunately, nothing happened but film. As a result, the festival has grown in confidence, content and character over the years. And Kenya's queer community champion the festival and claim it as their own. Laurent Bouchat, the director of the film Woubi Cheri, notes, “To watch a film surrounded by a public that share the very same life experiences and feelings is a very unique emotion you can’t get anywhere else.” This feeling is empowering and the number of times I have seen the auditorium erupt in emotion, snapping, clapping, cheering or jeering at a scene or statement, is testament to the power of a collective.
“Every culture’s history is essential. Everyone deserves to have their lives elevated through the beauty of truthful representation.” These words spoken by self-described nice guy, public speaker and author, Rohit Bargava, underscore the importance of festivals like OUT. It saddens me deeply that Kenyan movies that have been acclaimed globally are still to make their debut at the festival. Stories of Our Lives, Rafiki and I Am Samuel are powerful and beautiful films in their own right. Yet, a system that is unwilling to watch and learn about its own people has banned these movies from Kenyan audiences.
Since the end of the Moi era, the country's art sector has flourished and keeps going from strength to strength. We see more locally produced films, and the industry is churning out talented actors and filmmakers. But queer content still isn’t making its way to our local screens or audiences. People say that Kenya isn’t ready for ‘controversial’ topics. But the LGBTQ community, like any other community, deserves to have their story told in a way that they want it to be told. What better time than the present? The three aforementioned movies and the interest that they have generated is proof enough that Kenya is ready.
I grew up when there wasn’t much Kenyan or African content making its way onto the big screen. Let me take you back in time. I remember when the Ghanian movie, Love Brewed in an African Pot, came to the cinemas in the early 1980s. There were queues outside the 20th Century cinema to watch the film. Sadly, I was underage and therefore couldn’t watch the movie, but I remember the excitement that it solicited. Then, finally, an African movie with African actors was being screened! Fast forward a few years later to Saikati, by Anne Mungai, which was released in 1992. I am sure there were other Kenyan films, but they were not often screened at the Kenya, Nairobi or 20th Century cinemas, which were the more popular movie theatres. These movies stood out for me because they celebrated our African identity and they screened to full houses. We were able to see ourselves and our stories outside of the heavy diet of Western film that we were being fed on at the time. Representation matters.
I was overjoyed when we screened Dakan, by Mohammed Camara. This is the first West African film to tackle the subject of homosexuality directed by an African. Who would have thought that in 1997, there was a movie on African gay love that had been produced? Dakan is an iconic film and is part of our queer African history. The queer reality on the continent is not a single story. OUT has also been keen to portray other realities outside of the continent and has been able to look back to the early years of the activist LGBTQ movement. Our queer history matters.
“We need to open up a space to talk more about sex, and then artists like me want to open that up, even more, to talk about queerness,” said the late Kawira Mwirichia, the celebrated queer artist whose work was showcased during one of the editions of the festival.
This is a festival about life. Queer life. I remember when we screened God Loves Uganda, we were lucky enough to have Ugandan activists passing through Nairobi and they stumbled across the festival. We asked them questions about the now relegated Anti-Homosexuality Act and their experience of living as queer individuals in a country that is unapologetic in its discrimination towards the LGBTQ community. On the other hand, the Ugandans couldn't believe that we were able to freely host such an event without any state interference. A few years back, the festival coincided with World Aids Day, and during the day the auditorium temporarily turned into a VCT—Voluntary Counselling and Testing centre. It was fascinating seeing people just walk off the streets to either get condoms, femidoms or wanting to know about their HIV status. In commemoration of the day, that evening we lit candles outside the auditorium. The idea was good on paper, the execution could have been better, but our intention was pure.