AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A film made in Uganda for about $200 has become an Internet sensation, with its trailer viewed more than 2 million times.
Who Killed Captain Alex was written, directed and produced by Isaac Nabwana in 2010. Nabwana has produced almost 50 films. In April 2015, he filmed Operation Kakongoliro (“Ugandan Expendables”), an action film. It was filmed in a scrap yard in Wakaliga, a neighborhood in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, which now is known as“Wakaliwood.”
“It is going to be as big as Nollywood, Bollywood or even Hollywood — there’s no reason why not,” Nabwana boasted of Uganda’s informal film industry, insisting that studios in Nigeria, India and the United States will get a run for their money. “We think Hollywood people will come here,” he said.
It has been almost a decade since Nabwana, 42, built Ramon Film Productions, Uganda’s first action-film company, fulfilling his childhood dream of making movies. Today he is still building. “We need good cameras, software,” Nabwana said. “The biggest challenge is money.”
Promoter-producer Alan Hofmanis said the key hurdle is that Uganda’s film industry is “massively pirated.”
“It’s getting harder to sell the movies, with U.S.-pirated movies going for as little as 500 shillings,” Hofmanis said. That’s equal to less than 20 cents.
After the films are made, the production staff and actors, who usually have to supply their own wardrobe and do their own makeup, sell the movies door to door across Uganda for about $1 per copy.
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