A new film expos­es the mis­treat­ment of Uganda’s LGBT community

Under­stand­ing, in every sense of the word, is the essence of Swedish film­mak­er Jon­ny von Wallström’s deeply per­son­al, fre­quent­ly galling doc­u­men­tary, The Pearl of Africa. Com­pas­sion and com­pre­hen­sion are the prin­ci­ple objec­tives of a film that aims to spread aware­ness, enlight­en­ment and with any hope, much need­ed soci­etal change. One of the many jew­els to be sought out at Film Africa 2016, it con­demns the mis­treat­ment of Uganda’s LGBT com­mu­ni­ty by the fear­mon­ger­ing, oppres­sion and big­otry of the country’s Kam­pala-seat­ed government.

Same-sex rela­tion­ships have long been ille­gal in the sub-Saha­ran repub­lic but the pass­ing of an Anti-Homo­sex­u­al­i­ty Act in Feb­ru­ary 2014, which pro­posed pre-exist­ing life sen­tences be replaced by exe­cu­tion as pun­ish­ment for this sup­posed crime, saw a dan­ger­ous esca­la­tion in vicious rhetoric and vio­lent reprisals against mem­bers of a com­mu­ni­ty already in per­il. On the day the bill passed, Cleopa­tra Kam­bugu, a trans­gen­der woman liv­ing in Ugan­da, found her pic­ture and per­son­al details splashed across the front page of tabloid news­pa­per The Red Pepper.

With the opu­lent but restric­tive sym­bol­ism of its title in mind, much of The Pearl of Africa occurs with­in inte­ri­or spaces, and con­fined by a phys­i­cal form that does not match her con­scious­ness and sense of being, Cleo seeks escape from her metaphor­i­cal shell: ​“I wake to this body and car­ry on through hell.” After a peri­od of seclu­sion fear­ing for her safe­ty in pub­lic, she, along with charm­ing, and slight­ly goofy long-time part­ner Nel­son, is forced to flee the head­lines and her home. There may be two sides to every sto­ry but in allow­ing those who con­sid­er homo­sex­u­al­i­ty a ​“human wrong” – and not a human right – to speak for them­selves, Wall­ström sees pub­lic fig­ures, reli­gious lead­ers and politi­cians wil­ful­ly dig their own graves.

The spew­ing of vit­ri­ol decry­ing homo­sex­u­al­i­ty as a men­ace to the chil­dren and fam­i­ly uni­ty of Ugan­da is negat­ed through edit­ing and aston­ish­ing visu­al expres­sion that coun­ter­pois­es such bile with scenes of beau­ti­ful inti­ma­cy using close-ups, slow-mo footage and exquis­ite fram­ing which cap­tures two peo­ple uni­fied as one. Wallström’s back­ground lies in cin­e­matog­ra­phy and his film is rem­i­nis­cent of the rich­ly tex­tured palette cre­at­ed by DoP James Lax­ton on Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ Moon­light. How could the inde­scrib­able affec­tion and ten­der­ness exhib­it­ed between this cou­ple be any­thing oth­er than a shin­ing exam­ple of true love? How could the ten­der­ness, respect and com­mit­ment with which they hon­our one anoth­er be any kind of threat to the fab­ric of Ugan­dan society?

Indeed, desir­ing a fam­i­ly of her own with ​“Nel­lie” it is pre­cise­ly for this that the risk of trans­for­ma­tive surgery is under­tak­en when the cou­ple reach Thai­land. Cleo’s opti­mism and deter­mi­na­tion to com­plete her tran­si­tion, with Nel­son always at her side, mean that there is a sin­cere­ly touch­ing, defi­ant pos­i­tiv­i­ty at hand here. The film’s ellip­ti­cal, at times dream­like struc­ture fre­quent­ly sub­verts ini­tial inter­pre­ta­tion; the process of ques­tion­ing and re-eval­u­a­tion key to its aims.

Ear­ly images shot in a cramped train car­riage lat­er take on a deep­er sig­nif­i­cance as it is revealed that Cleo and Nel­son are flee­ing for their lives. It proves not to be a roman­tic get­away, or even the begin­ning of a hon­ey­moon, as first appear­ances sug­gest­ed. A change of point of view, hav­ing acquired greater knowl­edge of an individual’s cir­cum­stance, allows for altered per­spec­tives and a greater appre­ci­a­tion of their plight. It is with this bea­con of tol­er­ance and under­stand­ing that The Pearl of Africa and its lumi­nes­cent lead­ing lady glow.

Film Africa runs until 6 Novem­ber. Find out more at fil​mafrica​.org​.uk