Film Festival to Award Bibanda
By David Tumusiime
Published: September 12, 2005
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STARTING September 15, Kampala will be transformed into a Hollywood of sorts as the Amakula Kampala International Film Festival opens. The 10-day film festival that will open in venues like the National Theatre, Plaza Theatre, Ndere Centre, Sharing Youth Centre, Nsambya and Bat Valley Theatre, promises to be even more exciting than last year when the first one was held.

In addition to these theatres, 20 yet-to-be-named local community video halls (bibanda) will also host the Amakula film festival. To top it all, festival-goers will not have to pay a dime. Entry is free.

Amakula Film festival publicity representative Ras Jingo Kasujja promises that no one will be thrown out of the designated bibanda. "We have been working quite closely with them for some time now."

Already confirmed as attending are several African film luminaries, who will also make up part of the international jury. Moustaffa Alassane from Niger, who was the first African film maker to direct films with African storylines and content over 40 years ago, will be here, as will Silvia Bazoli, who boasts a lot of experience in Italian film festivals and is herself a film animation practitioner.

She will also curate a programme in that field during the festival. Makerere University lecturer in theatre and film Dominique Dipio as well as Kenyan film journalist Ogova Odenga and US-based Kenyan film director Mshai S. Mwangola are also to attend.

Of great interest will be what the organisers have termed the Veejay Slam. Debra Musuya Darby, who is the festival coordinator explains, "These are translators - the ones you hear in local video halls translating movies into Luganda which people can understand. We have selected eight of the best from all over Uganda and on that day they'll compete and the audience will get to choose who the best is."

Debra explains how this will work. "We are going to give them a movie. They'll stand in front of the audience with numbers. Each will take a turn to translate a portion of the movie. Some way in the movie we'll keep asking the audience to keep eliminating until there's only one winner."

Debra adds, "This festival and the slam is about the Veejays gaining recognition because they are very important. They provide something Hollywood cannot.

They are the ones who make these foreign movies accessible to people who would otherwise not be interested in them. But even what they do is an art form. It's about time they were recognised."

But best of all, this festival will also be an education in film history. A special slot has been reserved to view many cinematic classics, controversial and otherwise. Viewings of movie classics like the racist American Civil War-inspired Birth of a Nation by DW Griffiths will be countered by the work of such directors like Oscar Mitcheaux, the first African American to make films.

Other delights will be the blacksploitation greats like Foxy Brown that was basically about a female black James Bond and starred than the finer-than-fine Pam Grier.

Back home we'll get movies by legendary African film directors like Sembene Ousman. Something to definitely see will be musician Papa Wemba acting in The Importance of Being Elegant.

Perhaps the most extraordinary film to watch among these classics might turn out to be The Decalogue by renowned Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, based on the 10 commandments. The entire film is 10 hours long.

But most importantly, the festival will be a chance to see work by Ugandan filmmakers who, yes, do exist. Work to look forward to includes Steven Nyeko's It Can Be Round, Carolyn Kamya's The Dancing Wizard (about famed Ugandan ballroom dancer and teacher Christopher Kato) and Lovinsa Kavuma's Lost Boys of Congo that should nicely compliment Wendy Morris' disturbing A Royal Hunger set in colonial Belgian Congo.

There will be a prize for the best short film.

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