Film Festival
The OUT Film Festival was founded in 2011, as was the first queer festival in the East Africa region. We took a break last year explore strategies of how to integrate the festival into a Kenyan run space. Since its inception, the festival has been graciously hosted by the Goethe Institut, East Africa. OUT has managed to entrench itself within Nairobi's queer and cultural scene and I hope this year's festival will be a celebration of our African queerness and away of reflecting how we have navigated spaces, our normal, as LGBTQI+ folk during pre and post-COVID times.
Festival theme: This is Our Normal
FILMS
Faith - A Documentary (US/Kenya)
Faith was born and raised in Kenya but had to flee the country. We journey with her as she introduces her American wife and son to the country she once called home. Faith is forced to confront her past and find a balance between two worlds.
Director: Molly Pelavin
Duration: 54 min
Sidney and Friends (Kenya)
When his family tries to kill him, Sidney, who is intersex, flees to Nairobi where he meets a group of transgender friends. Together, they fight discrimination and discover life, love and self-worth.
Director : Tristan Aitchison
Duration: I hr 15 min
Via New York (US)
Tribute to Kagendo Murungi
Drawing from memory and narrative, Via New York explores the politicization of African students in New York and the participation of South African lesbians and gays in the anti-apartheid movement. Via New York is a snapshot of African lesbian and gay lives through the lens of migration and the pursuit of formal education. The film illustrates how both can function as catalysts for self-transformation and social change.
Kagendo Murungi was a fierce feminist, advocate, artist and filmmaker who fought for social justice in so many ways. She died in 2017.
Director: Kagendo Murungi
Duration: 10 min
In Plain Sight (Uganda)
A film about the LGBTQI+ community in Uganda and the amount of homophobia they face but aiming to change the narrative the comes out of the country. It offers a behind the scenes look into the community. Despite the amount of persecution, queer Ugandans do have normal lives. In Plain Sight allows for a new conversation to begin.
Director : Achiro Olwoch
Duration: 17 min
Taiwan Equals Love (Taiwan)
"Taiwan Equals Love" chronicles Taiwan's process of achieving same-sex marriage, through the lens of three generations of gay couples: a gay couple in their 70s, a lesbian couple in their 30s and 40s raising a daughter together, and a gay couple in their 20s of different nationalities who are starting a business together. Taiwan became the first country in Asia to achieve Marriage Equality on May 24, 2019, and, one year later, this documentary wants to share its story with the rest of the world, in hopes that others can soon reach the same milestone.
Director: Yan Zhexuan
Duration: I hour 25 min
Ife (Nigeria)
A love story about ìfé and Adaora, two Nigerian women who fall in love over a three-day date, but their love is soon tested by the realities of being lesbian in Nigeria.
Director: Uyai Ikpe-Etim
Duration : 36 min
Simon and I (South Africa)
SIMON & I is an intimate and inspiring portrait of black South African gay rights activist Simon Nkoli, who died of AIDS in 1998, and his fellow activist and protégé, Beverly Palesa Ditsie. This award-winning documentary exposes the friendship and how personal politics collide between two giants of the South African queer liberation movement.
Director: Beverley Palesa Ditsie and Nicky Newman.
Duration: 55 min
Madame (Switzerland)
Caroline, a flamboyant 90-year-old and her grandson Stéphane explore the development and transmission of gender identity in a patriarchal environment. A family saga based on private archive footage, Madame offers a dialogue between an extravagant matriarch and her gay grandson, challenging the taboos of gender and sexuality.
Director: Stephane Reithauser
Duration : 1 hr 33 min
Covid 19 and Cape Town Trans Homeless Sex Workers (South Africa)
In different areas across Cape Town, there are communities of homeless trans sex workers living under bridges, on open fields or wherever they can find a space in which to set up home. This short film looks into the experiences of homeless transgender sex workers across the city. The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown measures that were enforced by the South African government has had a significant impact on these women - and not only financially.
This film was commissioned to be part of GALA's project, Queer Lockdown: COVID-19 and Queer Life in South Africa.
Duration: 11 min
Defiance (Nigeria)
Defiance explores the lives of young queer individuals who are not just out and visible but are vocal in the fight for equality in Nigeria. It also explores the laws in Nigeria and how they affect the personal lives of LGBT+ people in the country. It features interviews with Matthew Blaise, Amara the Lesbian, Vincent Desmond and Mariam Sule.
Defiance is produced by The Rustin Times in collaboration with Love Matters Naija.
Director: Harry Itie
Duration: 42.5 min
Kenyan Christian and Queer (Kenya)
The film offers an intimate portrait of a group of Kenyan LGBTQ Christians. It specifically features the first LGBT church in the country, namely, the Cosmopolitan Affirming Community, that is based in Nairobi. This group of young queer Christians seeks to promote an inclusive and progressive form of Christianity, within a conservative society.
Director: Aiwan Obiyan
Duration: 20 min
The Surrogate (Uganda)
This is a story of myth and culture and the desire to be different and accepted in society. It is a story of a young woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock with a homosexual man in a culture that loathes the subject of either.
Director: Achiro Olwoch
Duration: 15 min
Fetish (UK)
Fetish is a very personal film. It is part performance part protest. Fetish is about the experience of being racially profiled, objectified, restricted and sexualised. It is made to honour all those who have been victims of police violence.
Director: Topher Campbell
Duration : 17 min
Back
