I remember the first Gay and Lesbian film festival I attended. That moment of seeing my first queer kiss on that screen was the first queer kiss I had ever seen - in real life or on the screen. In a world where the only embraces, kisses, sexual experiences, love, relationships and experiences we see are heteronormative, that first kiss will stay with me forever. I remember seeing it and thinking: what I feel, desire, experience, who I am, is shared by others and is ok, normal, beautiful.
And so, I cannot express the enormity of the feelings I have as a queer film I was privileged enough to be part of will make its big screen debut at the Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in October. The fact that I am able to live my truth, my experience, my Otherness in a country and a continent where people of other and othered genders, sexualities and sexual orientations are raped, mutilated and murdered on a daily basis is something I am grateful for and celebrate. The fact that I can celebrate my Otherness on a platform where others can see it and take hope in that celebration; that for some 15-year old confused or scared or hetero-flooded queer I can represent the possibility of an alternative life of my choice? HUGE. So proud. So grateful. So humbled
Memoirs of a Killarney Houseboy
Directed by Nadine Hutton
Starring Myer Taub and Brian Webber
Featuring Stanimir Stoykov, Kieron Jina, John Trengove and Matthew Krouse
Introducing Germaine de Larch
