As we re-align ourselves behind the the leaders of the LGBT community in the US safe in the knowledge that we have same-sex marriage dealt wth, and are ready now to fight back against the 200 plus anti-gay Bills introduced in the past six months alone, it still seems that the fight for equality is far from over. Important as all our struggles are, they do still somehow pale into insignificance when you come across a story from a country where it is not only still illegal to be gay, and mere disclosure could result in risking one’s life, yet someone is prepared to take that risk just so that they can start on that long road for equality even though they may never ever be able to catch us up.
One such story is that of Bisi Alimi an extraordinary self-less 41 year old gay activist, public speaker, and HIV/LGBT advocate who caused notoriety in Nigeria in 2004 when he came out as a gay man with HIV on live Television. It was the same year that the Country’s President had very publicly declared ‘there are no gays in Nigeria’. The TV show got cancelled, and although Alimi continued working co-ordinating services for AIDS patients with the International AIDS Alliance, and he co-founded The Independent Project (later, The Initiative for Equal Rights) working as its Executive Director, his life was always in danger.
Just three years later he was forced to flee Nigeria following numerous threats to his life, and settled in the UK where he was granted asylum and then citizenship. For the past 19 years Almi has been working studiously on HIV matters and has also become one of Africa’s leading Human rights activists holding various positions, and is currently the Executive Director of Bisi Alimi Foundation and a co-founder and director of Rainbow Intersection.
Now he is the subject of a feature length documentary that just doesn’t follow his life story to date but accompanies him as he finally undertakes the dangerous journey back to Nigeria for the first time since he was exiled. The movie plans to show how this son of a policeman, born in one of poorest neighborhoods of Lagos, got himself both an education and the courage and conviction to speak up not just for himself, but the whole scared and very frightened LGBT community. Alimi has spent his life dealing with discrimination and violence at first hand that is rife in countries like his. Seeing it how it effects his community puts a very personal face on something that is too often tucked comfortable out of sight. On the upside, the film also shows the people who have been inspired by him, and are determined to help take his legacy further.
The highly anticipated documentary by British filmmaker Joe Cohen has just been completed thanks to the final funding from Kickstarter and will be released in Spring 2017. Below is the first trailer, and you can track the the movie’s progress from its Facebook Page.
