GAY AFRICA filming for freedom

The GAY AFRICA programme features a varied selection of gay and lesbian films and documentaries from Africa and the African Diaspora. Most of these films orginate from South Africa, the motor behind
the African gay emancipation. The Gay & Lesbian Film Festival OUT IN AFRICA is one of the biggest film festivals and BEHIND THE MASK, a government supported South African media organization, supplies the continent of information. Because the attention of the Western media still mainly goes to traditional subjects, it is important for the gay and lesbian films to be featured and nurtured at festivals. Created under trying circumstances, with minimal means, occasionally tiny masterpieces, they show a struggle for equal rights in a continent where many gays and lesbians are imprisoned because of their sexual identity.

In RAG TAG the Afro- British Raymond and Tagbo discover that it takes more than love and sex to make a relationship work. Things get pretty complicated when they are faced with rejection from family and friends. Not since YOUNG SOUL REBELS (1991) has there been another film that deals with the complexities of the familial and sex lives of gay Afro- Brits. A must see. In the short film À QUI LE DROIT two lesbians are playing with fire by openly testing their love in Cameroon, where homosexuality is forbidden. This is in stark contrast to the reality documentary BLACK BEULAHS, in which gays in Soweto are entering a new era, but quarrel amongst themselves about their gay image. The complete second season of the African- American hit soap NOAH ’S ARC is also part of the programme. Directors, writers, and producers of queer cinema are creating films for freedom and democracy. They give voice to the African and African Diaspora gays, lesbians and transgenders, who get little to no attention on the international political stage.

Monday the 10th of September is GAY AFRICA Day in Rialto cinema in Amsterdam. A varied selection of gay and lesbian films and documentaries will be screened from 17.30 onwards.