‘This film is dedicated to queer Africans’

 Daniel Nelson

The opening shots of I Am Samuel encapsulate the dilemma of this documentary about a gay Kenyan couple: its gentle opening moments are shattered by a shockingly violent public homophobic attack.

Peter Murumi’s camera trails Samuel and records him with Alex – the two are almost inseparable – as they talk, walk, work, play netball, celebrate their anniversary with friends (“I’m glad that I found someone I’m happy to wake up to every day”), and visit Samuel’s parents.

It’s a point-and-shoot film, with the feel of a home movie, and is content to let the two men speak for themselves and slowly build a picture of the couple’s life.

Samuel was brought up in the countryside and it was only when he moved to Nairobi and discovered the Internet that he realised he was not unusual “and found we were many”.

It’s a quiet film about an ordinary loving couple, and I applaud it for that. Perhaps that’s what needed in Africa, and elsewhere, at the moment, to show that same sex relationships are not an aberration or a threat. The problem is that at the beginning of the film we glimpsed the potential for violence that homosexuality can provoke, and we get no answers to the issues that such intolerance raises.

For example, he has been beaten and told to stop being gay. And in an attempt to fit in with family and society at an earlier stage of his life, Samuel had a girlfriend and a daughter (“I’m proud because I’m a parent”). What happened to them? His father (“Samuel] will marry eventually. He doesn’t have a problem”) turns a blind eye but is not reconciled to his son’s sexual preferences. His father is a pastor: how does his community react? It would be interesting to know more about that, about living with awareness of danger, about whether he and Alex think attitudes have changed.

Those issues will have to await another film. This one has a more modest ambition, and has its own value. As it says at the end: “This film is dedicated to queer Africans. May you all live in love and truth with your families.”

* I Am Samuel is showing at The Apple Tree, 45 Mount Pleasant, WC1 on 3 June + Q&A with Samuel Asilikwa, Pete Murimi, and Tony Kumau, £6.99