The struggle of reconciling one’s queerness is always at the centre stage of the lives of Queer people. It’s also the main plot of Pete Murimi’s new documentary, I am Samuel. Pete Murumi. Pete Murumi is a Kenyan director and the 2019 Rory Peck Award winner. In his interview with OkayAfrica, he notes that his inspiration for this movie were his own experiences as a young man. He says, “My own father’s expectations of me were that I would go into business, marry someone preferably from my neighbourhood or community and that we would have children. I did not fulfill any of his wishes and it made me think of African expectations of masculinity and what a man “should” do and the weight of family expectations.” The documentary, I am Samuel, is an intimate portrait of a Kenyan man torn between balancing duty to his family with his dreams for his future, in a society that criminalizes homosexuality.
About the documentary, Ciku Kimeria writes, “Samuel grew up in the Kenyan countryside, where tradition is valued above all else. He is close to his mother but his father, a local pastor, doesn’t understand why he isn’t married yet. After moving to Kenya’s capital in search of work and a new life, Samuel falls in love with Alex and finds community and belonging. Despite the threat of violence in the city and of rejection by Samuel’s family in their rural home, the couple move between their co-existing worlds, hoping to win acceptance in both.”
Filmed over 5 years, the documentary explores themes of conservative religion, sexuality, and coming out and had its World Premiere at the 2020 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
Produced by Toni Kamau, edited by Ricardo Acosta C.C.E and Phil Jandaly, I am Samuel will stream live on the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
“Acceptance means different things to different people. In the context where homosexuality is criminalized in most African countries, where public sentiment against the community is generally very hostile and where violence against members of the community if they are discovered is quite common, most people can never come out in the form that people do in the West,” Pete Murumi tells OkayAfrica.
