The film industry in Uganda was discovered as early as 1893 when its first movie was produced. Like any industry that is still growing, the industry has been plagued by numerous challenges, including funding, lack of passionate people.
Stage plays that excited the market quickly lost direction because of poorly unidentified leadership, who couldn’t differentiate the film from other bandal of rights. Fast forward to the 1960s and film begun to pick up with the Kayayu Film Players and thereafter in the 1980s, with the Obwavu Musolo by Kyeswa and mid- 1980s with the That’s Life Mwatu and Bibaawo series.
By 2000, a few movies branded the film industry market following the mirth of Nigerian movies that started to show on the airwaves of Uganda. The passion of film naturally drove the film industry gearing towards great opportunity after the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) stepping in to streamline it as key regulators in 2013.
The main challenge of the film industry has been the Film Legal Framework to govern the industry and its activities. The increasing TV stations that lacked a sense of guidance and direction to promote local content, resorted to promoting piracy by broadcasting pirated foreign content.
In addition to that, the nonperformance of copyright body, Collective Management of Organisations (CMO) licensed by the Uganda Registrations Services Bureau (URSB), has now also failed the industry.
The copyright policy for many years under the Registrar is compromising on the supervision of the continuous illegal distributors and exhibitors in the country engaging themselves in the promotion of theft for intellectual property, pornography and homosexuality by selling unclassified movies, which role the Media Council has failed to enforce.
There has been a rapid growth in the quality and quantity of film production each year ever since the Uganda Film Festival was started up by UCC and Uganda Film Producer’s Association in 2013. Unfortunately, a bigger section of the population has not had a chance to watch our films due to lack of proper distribution structures. So, MultiChoice is giving local filmmakers a chance to attend master classes with international experts, which is a golden opportunity for the Uganda film industry.
The Uganda Film Industry just exists naturally, but not legally. It lacks clear film laws, rules, guidelines, and policy to strengthen its existence.
An umbrella body, Uganda Film Council, has designed and developed the draft of the National Films Policy, which was submitted to the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, as well as the Ministry of ICT and consultations on the policy, are underway countrywide.
The industry lacks a one-stop center that leads to the confusion of authority and therefore a delay in the production processes, making it expensive for both local and foreign producers to manage.
In conclusion, the Uganda Film Industry has been marked as one of the most creative and promising industries in Africa due to its rich and compelling storytelling.
Throughout the world, the film industry provides vast employment opportunities which include Within Production roles: producers/directors, actors/actresses, camera operators, arts/design film/video editors, audio/video technicians, writers/editors, graphic designers, art directors, set designers, carpenters, costume attendants, hair/make-up
And within management roles sales organizations, Office/administrative, operations related, administrative assistants, finance, record/information clerk, Accountants, executive assistants.
In the next five years, we expect to have a population of more than three million youth in the industry as well as gazetted film shooting districts and centers of excellence across the country to provide cheap production services.