Dreamweaver

The unlikely friendship between a Ugandan boxing champ/former child soldier and his Philadelphia manager.

by Molly Eichel

Kassim "The Dream" Ouma and "Uncle" Tom Moran in Uganda

Kassim Ouma, the boxer and former Ugandan child solider who is the subject of the new documentary Kassim the Dream, considers himself "black Irish."

"My name is Kassim Ouma but I should be McOuma," he says, laughing.

For Ouma, a former light middleweight champion of the word, the black part is obvious. The Irish comes from Tom Moran, a Philadelphian with Hibernian roots who is an omnipresent character in the film. Moran is Ouma's manager and de facto psychologist. He is Ouma's beloved "Uncle Tom."

"All my nieces and nephews call me Uncle Tom and Kassim's around all of my nieces and nephews, so he's like, 'OK, you're Uncle Tom,'" says Moran over a pint of Guinness. (For the record, Moran gets the reference; Ouma is aware of it but doesn't care.)

The family connection is heartfelt on both ends. Three months before Ouma was supposed to take on Jermain Taylor in 2006 to defend his title belt, Moran's sister, Patty, died of cancer. During the pre-fight press conference, as shown in the film, Ouma decked himself out in kelly green and wore a headband saluting her as "Mommy Patty."

Kief Davidson, director of Kassim the Dream, likens Moran and Ouma's relationship to something more common between boxers and managers in the '40s and '50s.

Moran was never a boxer — he's not interested in going to the gym, he cares more about business and decries the brutality of movies like Rocky. When Moran graduated from Temple, he had his sights set on film. He was a program director at Comcast, making documentaries on drug abuse, the prison system and Philadelphia boxing. It was while working on the last that Moran started managing boxers, like former heavyweight champ Tim Witherspoon.

Moran first met Ouma at a training camp in Florida, after they were introduced by Ouma's financial backer. While Moran knew the basics of Ouma's story, he had no way of understanding what a child soldier really was. Ouma's friends told Moran about how Ouma had been kidnapped before his sixth birthday in one of the worst war zones in Uganda, forced into the National Resistance Army, and trained to kill before he lost his baby teeth.

It took time for Ouma to open up to Moran. It wasn't until Moran chastised Ouma for smoking weed too close to fights that Ouma began to share his experiences. "When I snapped on him, that was the first time he ever cried in front of me and he cried his eyes out and he said, 'You don't understand. How do you think a 7-year-old survives being in a war?'"

Moran also recalls a scene in the film in which Ouma taks a hit off a blunt before he begins the day's training session. Ouma tries to hide behind a telephone pole, then flashes a big grin when the cameras catch him exhaling. Despite what he's been through, Ouma is a pretty sunny guy. A large smile often pervades his strong face. "Some days you want to smack him upside the head," Moran says. "And other days you want to hug him."

And that's how it goes, with Ouma playing the role of mischievous imp and Moran filling in as a father figure.

The fighter and mentor grew even closer when Ouma was set to fight for the USBA title, an entry-level title fight in October of 2002. Ouma had invited his mother and brother to fly from Uganda, but they were denied entry into the U.S. Moran immediately called the U.S. Embassy in Uganda, staying on the phone for three hours in the middle of the night. He claimed that even though the U.S. had given Ouma political asylum, it didn't have the right to tell him that he couldn't see his mother again. "We argued, we debated," says Moran. "They finally said, 'If we let his mother come in, will you get off the phone?' and I said yes."

After uniting Ouma with his mother, Moran's next mission was to bring Ouma's son over from Uganda. It took five years. And when Ouma wanted to go back to Uganda for the first time since 1998 (when he stole his passport from his superiors and escaped into the U.S. with little money and no friends), Moran was with him all the way. Even when the Ugandan government said that Ouma would be charged with desertion from a military he was forced to join in the first place, Moran was there. Kassim the Dream chronicles Ouma's return to Uganda for the first time in 10 years.

In order to return to Uganda, where the charge for desertion is death, Moran and Ouma worked to get an exoneration from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the former head of the army that kidnapped Ouma. Before Ouma was absolved, Moran was worried the boxer would try to sneak into Uganda. But Ouma says that going without Moran never occurred to him.

"Uncle Tom is more than just a manager. We're just family, that's all we are," says Ouma. "No matter whether he's a manager or not. It's not easy to find a family that's your family. But that's my family. Uncle Tom is my family."

(molly.eichel@citypaper.net)

Kassim the Dream screens Thu., April 2, 9:30 p.m. at International House; and Fri., April 3, 4:45 p.m. at the Prince Music Theater. The film opens theatrically this summer.