The Uganda Film Festival (UFF) has returned for its 8th edition. The five-day film festival kicked off at a cocktail evening held at Acacia Mall, Kisementi on Monday.
The evening culminated with a movie screening of Kemi – The Final Tragedy, a film about a mother who is forced to let go of her newly born baby after realizing that she could lose it through the struggle. The movie is also a contender for Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Costume awards.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Susan Wegoye, the Director of Legal Affairs, Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), said that this year’s edition will run from 29th March 2021 to 2nd April, 2021 under the theme, “Rebuilding a Resilient Creative Industry through the Pandemic.”
She added that, “I commend our Ugandan film actors, producers and directors for the continued creative and innovate input towards building a robust film industry. Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) is mandated to promote sustainable growth and through the Uganda Film Festival (UFF) we have been able to promote the immense talent that sits in our country while ensuring to facilitate a conducive operating environment for our film industry.”
The week-long festival will have film screenings, film trainings for script writers, film exhibitions, workshops among other activities that will culminate in an Award Gala night on 2nd April with outstanding film creations winning awards.
Launched in 2013, the film festival is aimed at providing a platform to showcase local content in the film industry, award remarkable industry players, generate revenue as well as promote the industry through trainings in addition to driving interest in Ugandan film both locally and internationally.
In his remarks, Colin Asiimwe, the Head of Marketing at MultiChoice Uganda said that MultiChoice Uganda joins this year’s film festival as a platinum sponsor with a variety of prizes to be won by participants in the festival.
“MultiChoice Uganda is vested in forging partnerships that facilitate the growth, development, marketing and showcasing of local content and the film industry at large. As part of our sponsorship, we shall enroll the script writers that emerge from this year’s Uganda Film Festival into the MultiChoice Talent Factory (MTF), a Corporate Social Investment initiative that we launched to train and certify passionate film producers, writers, editors, production managers and actors onto a Masterclass on script writing, which will be coming in the next few months.”
MultiChoice Uganda will also be sponsoring two awards this year; the Best Director category and the Best Cinematography category as it strives to support the local content being produced in Uganda. For both these awards, MultiChoice Uganda will offer a cash prize of Ugx 10 million and a mentorship programme with M-Net Studios in South Africa.
Mr. Asiimwe revealed that, “All the movies which emerge as winners on the Award Gala night, will be given the option to air on Pearl Magic and Pearl Magic Prime for a certain period of time, with the express permission of the content owner. We will also put together prize packs for all the winners awarded in the various categories.”
This year’s categories include; Best Student Film, Best Animation, Best Short Film, Best Documentary, Best Script (Screenplay), Best TV Drama, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Design, Best Feature Film, among others.