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Written by Louis Weisberg
Mar 24, 2011
Despite their long stay in western countries where homosexuality is accepted, African people living in Canada have not really accepted the LGBT community and still share the same prejudices with the large majority of those living on the African continent, according to Honoré Noumabeu, a Cameroonian born film director.
“Une Vie Interdite/The Forbidden Life,” produced by Noumabeu, is a documentary that looks look at how homosexuality and transgender are perceived within Québec’s African community.
“My observation is that it is still very difficult for those who were born and had lived in Africa to accept homosexuality, as long as they are not confronted themselves to this reality through one of their relatives or loved ones, because they grew up or have inherited of its cultural beliefs and values” says Noumabeu.
According to Noumabeu, despite the environment in their host country where homosexuality is well accepted, most African-born Canadians or even African nationals living in Canada, still perpetuate the same stereotypes and feel the same dislike towards same sex practices.
Noumabeu, said what sparked his interest on this issue, was his first encounter with his colleague’s father who, much to his astonishment, happened to be a woman.
“Coming from Africa where homosexuality is perceived as a witchcraft practice, against all our cultural values and even liable to a prison sentence, I arrived in Canada and met a colleague who used to speak openly about her father who was gay,” he said.
Noumabeu says it is unfortunate that people still perceive homosexuality that way because “if one looks at it closely, the human being is unique in each individual and that makes it special. Each person is a hope and finds oneself in this hope to grow, to find her or his place in this world that condemns instead of learn, communicate and love.”
The documentary “Une Vie Interdite/The Forbidden Life,” filmed and produced in Canada, was first screened on Feb. 12 in Montréal at the Massimadi Festival, an Afro-Caribbean LGBT film and documentary festival hosted by Arc en Ciel d’Afrique (African Rainbow) during Black History Month.
The production started on July 2009 and the team is in the process of writing the English subtitles in order to make the documentary available to the English-speaking community.
“It is my hope and my intention to screen this documentary at as many as possible film festivals, the next one could certainly be the Festival Vues d’Afrique in Canada, and of course I am open to all propositions,” says Noumabeu.
