God Loves Uganda

Full Frame Inspiration Award 2013

NEW DOCS

With a burgeoning youth-heavy population and an aspirational middle class looking to acquire the habits and comforts of wealthy nations, Uganda has become a prime recruiting ground for evangelists. And many modern missionaries bring along with them an appalling strain of anti-gay prejudice. Gay Ugandans not only fear terrorizing mobs and vigilantes but also their own government, which has threatened to make homosexuality a capital offense. This film traces scenes of creepy neocolonial proselytizing back to America’s megachurches, which are sending waves of their most earnest young followers to Africa, and follows the courageous efforts of Ugandan religious leader Bishop Christopher Senyonjo as he takes a stand against bigotry and fights for the rights of LGBT people. “Religion is being used to demonize, and, in fact, to kill,” he says. “The Americans, when they preach hate here, they forget that they are preaching to people who will just take the law into their hands.”  MM

Director

Roger Ross Williams

Producers

Roger Ross Williams, Julie Goldman

Editors

Richard Hankin, Benjamin Gray

Cinematographer

Derek Wiesehahn

Release Year

2013

Festival Year

2013

Country

United States

Run Time

83 minutes