Fireworks Logo

Latest Lesbian Additions...

  • How to Blow Up a Pipeline
  • Willem & Frieda
  • 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture
  • 5 Devils (The)
  • American Horror Story
  • Tom Daley: Illegal to Be Me
  • Passion
  • Big Proud Party Agency (The)
  • Law of Love (The)
  • Gateways Grind
  • It Runs in the Family
  • First Kill
  • Along Came Wanda
  • They/Them
  • Last Thing Mary Saw (The)
  • Beauty
  • Anaïs in Love
  • Joe Lycett's Big Pride Party
  • Motherland: Fort Salem
  • Please Baby Please
  • Secret Love (A)
  • Anonymous Club
  • Wet Sand
  • Nico
  • Ultraviolette and the Blood-Spitters Gang
  • Camila Comes Out Tonight
  • Invisible: Gay Women in Southern Music
  • Death and Bowling
  • Benedetta
  • Scary of Sixty-First (The)
  • Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
  • Alone with You
  • Saint Maud
  • And Just Like That...
  • Ahead of the Curve
  • Novice (The)
  • Titane
  • Bird Flew In (A)
  • Compartment Number 6
  • Silent Night

Born This Way

Country: Cameroon, Language: French, 85 mins

  • Director: Shaun Kadlec; Deb Tullmann
  • Producer: Shaun Kadlec; Deb Tullmann

CGiii Comment

What looked like a thoroughly worthy project...is let-down by a couple of unworthy directors, both clearly incapable of spotting a good story in a library laden with good stories.

Apart from it being needlessly boring, it's chronically uninformative...homosexuality is illegal, carrying a penalty of 5 years in prison. That's it, that's all the information you get. Not a mention of the church and state regime...

The display of bad judgment is overwhelming...a protracted conversation with a taxi driver about the female orgasm - totally bizarre and unnecessary. The 'coming out' scene to the rifle-shooting nun - what was that all about?!? The hidden camera in the courtroom filming a case unrelated to the story. Why?!?

There are two high points, the human rights lawyer - deserving of a film all to herself. And, the silhouetted couple's conversation...both touching and horrifying.

This is point and shoot with no aforethought...it's lazy, ineffectual filmmaking. The material was there, in abundance - a disappointing wasted opportunity...the LGBT community in Cameroon deserved better.


Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

BORN THIS WAY is a portrait of the underground gay and lesbian community in Cameroon. It follows Cedric and Gertrude, two young Cameroonians, as they move between a secret, supportive LGBT community and an outside culture that, though intensely homophobic, is in transition toward greater acceptance.