Liberation Season: Screening – Africa’s Last Taboo

Emmy award winning reporter of Cry Freetown Sorious Samura, brings to light the brutal and little reported contemporary persecution faced by tens of thousands of African gay men.

"My life was in danger. They were shouting kill him…I thought i was going to die". The words of Nicholas Mwema, forced into hiding, protected by police custody for the crime of homosexuality.

Over the course of Sorius Samura‘s journey across Africa, it becomes shockingly apparent that homosexuality is not an African freedom. Murders, beatings, imprisonments and social ostracisation are just some of the  consequences gay men face in their native countries as well as Africa’s well publicised Aids epidemic.

Though a series of intimate interviews and portrayals of the dangers of active homosexuality, Samura paints a an explicit picture of the reality of gay communities across Africa. From the rare sympathisers clerics responsible for inciting mob violence.

49mins
2010