opinion
By Bamuturaki Musinguzi
As the film fraternity prepares for the fourth edition of the Ugandan Film Festival (UFF) later in the year, local filmmakers still have to grapple with lack of funding and equipment, a poor distribution network, lack of a government film commission and an affordable film school to support the budding sector.
Filmmaker Evelyn Cindy Magara, a lecturer in film studies at Makekere University and a director/screen writer at Nyati Motion Pictures, said film production activities in the country do not qualify to be called an industry.
“If for any reason we call it so, it has to be qualified. Film making in Uganda is in its infancy. It still has to go through all the development stages. So far, we are still at the crawling stage,” she told The EastAfrican.
According to Ms Magara, Uganda’s nascent film industry faces a number of serious challenges. First, there is no reliable film school. The nearest one is in Nairobi and it is very expensive. Some local institutions exist that teach professional film production, but the few graduates have trouble finding work.
“This is because film does not pay. Television stations in the country want to show local productions for free. The only television network that pays is DSTV. But even with the kind of money DSTV pays, a local filmmaker will still struggle to make a simple short film,” Magara added.
Despite the growth in local television stations and the cinema business in the past 10 years, local film producers are still struggling to produce quality works and their full feature pictures rarely break into the mainstream industry to grace the silver screen.
Foreign content
From nine television stations in 2005, whose programmes were 90 per cent foreign content and only 10 per cent locally sourced, there are now 40 operational broadcast companies according to data compiled by industry regulator Uganda Communication Commission (UCC).
A UCC monitoring survey released last September shows that local content does not get enough airplay. In the first and second quarter of 2015, the state-owned public broadcaster Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) led the local content charts at 46.6 per cent, way below the broadcasting policy requirement that local TV stations air 70 per cent homegrown content and 30 per cent foreign.
In the cinema business also, the numbers are heavily tilted towards foreign content.
“The quality is still lacking” said Lorraine Oguttu of the locally produced content. Ms Oguttu is in charge of public relations at Cinemax, one of four upmarket cinema halls in Kampala.
Local productions lack the pull of Hollywood brand names to attract audiences, and in addition, they lack money for publicity so appreciation of their entertainment value is also low, said Bernard Kawule, a local film producer working with Iceberg Films.
George Ssengendo, a station manager with UBC, added that the undoing of the local film industry is the lack of a certified institution to train producers and movie makers.
He further argues that the lack of a recognised film makers’ body that brings together industry players as well as a lack of copyright laws, hinders quality and earnings from productions.
“Many amateurs take on film production as a hobby without putting passion into it, yet there are many platforms that can enable film makers get airplay for their projects,” said Mr Ssengendo.
Professional school
Established in 2010, the Kampala Film School (a subsidiary of Kampala University) was the first film school in the country. The school currently offers a two-year diploma course in filmmaking as it waits for accreditation from the Uganda National Council for Higher Education for its proposed three-year Bachelor of Arts degree in filmmaking.
The tuition fees for the diploma course are Ush1.8 million ($529) per semester while the proposed degree course will cost Ush2 million ($587) per semester. The school also runs short courses throughout the year on cinematography, editing, special effects and script writing.
A trainer at the school, Dennis Onen, argued that the fees are relatively cheap compared with those charged by other institutions offering the same training in the region, adding that: “Our students are getting first class training from world renowned filmmakers who fly down here and share their experiences.”
Mr Onen told The EastAfrican that Kampala Film School is proud of its productions which he said are of global standards. “We encourage our students at the end of their first year to start producing films that can compete at international film festivals.”
“Basically, there is no money in the ‘film industry.’ There is a need for serious reorganisation starting with a film commission, the involvement of the government, formation of film guilds and setting favourable terms for foreign productions filmed in Uganda. For example, Queen of Katwe, a recent Hollywood production shot in Uganda, flew in the majority of the production assistants from South Africa. The basic jobs that could have been done by Ugandans were done by foreigners,” Ms Magara lamented.
According to filmmaker Matt Bish (born Mathew Bishanga), there is never a fixed cost for shooting a low or high budget feature or short film in Uganda. The determinant factor is usually how a script has been written.
The script may call for shooting in places like the Kampala Serena Hotel, with expensive cars such as Mercedes to depict a rich family; in that case, then the cost is going to be Ush30-Ush60 million ($8,818-17,637). Yet the same scene can be shot at a two star hotel with a Toyota car and achieve the same goal, Bish added.
“Ugandans need to understand that they don’t need all that much money to shoot a film,” Bish advised.
Bish also noted that raising money to fund productions poses the biggest challenge. “People are not aware of the advantages of investing in film because they lack knowledge of film and its benefits in society.”
Ms Magara also cited the lack of a proper distribution network and piracy as some of the challenges facing the industry. Beside these issues however, Irene Kulabako who is also a filmmaker observed that the film fraternity in Uganda is too fragmented.
“We have very many associations. As long as we don’t speak with one voice, it will be difficult for us to grow. Everyone wants to own a film company even when they lack equipment and the money for high quality productions.”
Ms Magara concurred: “There is evidently no order in the Ugandan film scene. We have no guilds, no commission and no government support. This, she said, has led to exploitation by the big budget foreign filmmakers and stagnation of the local film industry.
But according to the Minister of Information and National Guidance, Maj-Gen Jim Muhwezi, the government is planning to set up a film commission to oversee the development of the industry, which Ms Kulabako said is welcome as “Uganda is quickly becoming a film destination, so the commission will be very handy in terms of organisation, direction and monitoring.”
Ms Magara said that lack of funding for big budget productions by local producers has led to the latter turning to producing television series even when the pay by the few local televisions is still poor.
Real figures
According to a report from a survey done in 2009 (the last time such a survey was carried out) 60 per cent of people working in film making are freelance and based in Kampala and other major towns in Uganda.
The survey found that there is a strong interaction between this sector and other creative sectors, especially music. For example, some of the creative news and entertainment programmes on local TVs and radios are locally produced. TV transmission reaches almost 80 per cent of the districts across the country.
The findings also revealed that the bulk of productions under cinema, film and audio are corporate videos, followed by television advertisements and then film for the cinema/entertainment.
The industry is characterised by complex supply chains with production drawing upon a wide range of skills as well as interactions with other creative sectors.
For example, the Uganda Federation of the Movie Industries estimated that there were about 1,200 film distributors in 2008 in Kampala alone and over 2,000 video halls around the country.
The video sector is common in the densely populated urban areas and is a key source of employment for operators and an affordable and convenient entertainment to the public.
In terms of turnover, the survey showed that enterprises under this cluster are big income earners. Some 83.3 per cent were found to be generating more than Ushs20 million ($5,879). These are largely TV stations, radio stations and film producers. Only 16.7 per cent earn in the range of Ush5 – 20 million ($1,469-5,879) annually.
Funding and lack of proper equipment are also a challenge for local producers of movies and TV content. For instance, a local TV company would rather fork out $3,000 to run Mexican, Filipino or Indian series daily, compared with a local production whose makers will ask for equipment and about Ush2.5 million ($687.4) to shoot a single episode of a drama series such as The Ultimate B-Ball Show, a basketball programme that aired on local TV channel Urban. Most TV stations claim they cannot afford this amount since they operate on tight budgets.
Cinema presents a different dilemma. According to Ms Oguttu, if a film producer has a good script and casts popular actors, the cinema hall management and the producer can reach a deal to split box office earnings on a 50/50 basis.
But this is on the condition that the producer is sure the film will get a good reception from the audience. The other option is for the producer to book the theatre at the going rates, which are between Ush2.7 million ($743.6) and Ush3.5 million ($946) depending on the day and time, and then take all the box office collections.
On a weekly basis, Kampala’s four upscale cinema halls screen two Hollywood movies and one Bollywood picture repeatedly, leaving no room for local films.
In terms of funding, on the other hand, Nigeria’s Nollywood, Africa’s leading movie industry — its rough edges not withstanding — is way ahead of East Africa.
In 2013, then Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan pledged $200 million for Nollywood, which has seen it contribute $590 million to the national gross domestic product.
Additional reporting by Raymond Tamale.
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