Still from Scam Slave: From Hell to Home
Opening night includes Timothy Blackwood’s riveting documentary Scam Slave: From Hell to Home
Filmmaker Timothy Blackwood’s documentary short opens with the simple crawl, “In South East Asia, there are over 200,000 people enslaved to scam.” His documentary, Scam Slave: From Hell to Home, sharing the experience of one man from a Ugandan village, is part of the opening night of the Kansas City Film Fest International this weekend, September 18-20, at AMC Ward Parkway (8600 Ward Parkway).
“The beauty and power of film and storytelling is to help people empathize with those who have been scammed and those who have been enslaved to scam,” Blackwood says. The scamming centers, largely operating out of Southeast Asia, operate from the enslaved labor, according to the UN, of people from 80 countries.
Blackwood, whose documentary won accolades at Flickers in Providence, Rhode, Island, and at Anthem Film Festival in Las Vegas, speaks of meeting Gideon Mwesezi through anti-trafficking expert Matt Freeman. Gideon ran an Internet café to help his family financially until rising rent impelled him to accept an offer for a data entry position in Thailand. In 2023, after selling his inventory for the plane ticket, he arrived for a lucrative opportunity only to find himself among the more than 1,000 Ugandans trapped in Laos, Cambodia or, in his case, Myanmar, for the purpose of scamming people, mainly Americans, under the constant reality of torture for refusal.
Being stripped of his belongings and beaten upon arrival, Gideon recalls thinking, “I pray to God. I told God, ‘Help me survive this moment.” Gideon’s narrative, like that of his brother, Roman, underpins the artistry of Blackwood’s storytelling and Sofia Ferabuoli’s illustrations.
One illustration, augmented by Gideon’s telling, shows the enslaved workers’ attempted revolt met by their captors’ raised guns. The handful of the enslaved who didn’t retreat were, Gideon says, handcuffed, put on hooks, and “suspended by our wrists.” Then, against Blackwood’s sun-lit scenes of Gideon with his siblings, Gideon speaks of dreaming of them, his sense of momentary peace amid physical agony is halted when he senses the electric currents of his captors tazing him back to consciousness.
Blackwood’s challenge in telling a story rife with physical degradation was to remain true to the artistry of his storytelling. “We want to bring this story of a human rights catastrophe tactfully to the screen,” he says. “It’s a story about resilience, faith, and when you see the tremendous adversity that Gideon has to overcome, it’s a testament to what the human spirit is. On one hand you see egregious inhumanity and its horrors of what these people are putting other human beings through. On the other side, we see the tremendous power and grace of Gideon and the ambassador.”
The answer to Gideon’s faith and his fellow enslaved scammers’ efforts is, indeed, Madam Betty Bigombe, the Ugandan ambassador to Myanmar. Using Telegram, the device they were assigned by their captors to make scam calls, Gideon’s fellow enslaved Ugandans reached the office of Bigombe, who immediately began intervening on the part of 25 Ugandans who were held at the scamming center. After her initial attempts were met by impossible ransoms requests, Bigombe, persevering, made contact with the rebel group in charge of the area in which Gideon and his fellow enslaved Ugandans were held.
The release of the 25 Ugandans was in March of 2024. Bigombe says, “some of them were kneeling down. Some of them broke down and wept.”
Gideon says, “We all hugged her.” In May of 2024, after four months of captivity, Gideon returned to Uganda, where he has embarked on a musical career. His song, Dark Room, produced by Blackman’s brother David, plays on the end credits of the film.
For Blackman, the experience of meeting Gideon and telling his story has been a galvanizing one. “Why I believe so powerfully in this movie is I have so much conviction that we’ve got to get the word out there.” Blackman says, “It’s exciting to be back in Kansas City with the fourth film. I feel very connected, because they’ve been consistently supportive of my career.”
KCFFI is celebrating its 30th anniversary this weekend, which will include special events — a 30-year anniversary viewing of Robert Altman’s Kansas City and a film panel conversation between actor Terrence Howard and film critic Lonita Cook. For tickets and schedules, visit kcfilmfest.org.
