15 December 2007
Kampala — MARIAM Ndagire has been patient in realising her dream. She finally premieres her debut movie, Down This Road I Walk, to the general public at Theatre La Bonita next Friday and at Bat Valley on Saturday and Sunday. From media interviews as far back as 2002, she has been telling journalists that she hoped to make a film.
And the first attempt did not come easy. Ndagire wrote the script for almost a year and shot for eight months.
Her patience has paid off with this moral fable. Catherine and Freddie fall in love and, as expected, dream of tying the knot when adulthood comes. But Catherine's father Kateregga (Michael Wawuyo), who is fast running out of money, would prefer to give his daughter to a rich man.
Charles Begumisa (Wycliff Luyombya), the wealthy man who is approached by Kateragga immediately accepts the offer. Begumisa is motivated by his villainous mother (Ndagire), who is dying for a grandchild. Meanwhile, Begumisa is being hotly pursued by the Ghanaian ex-lover he met while in London. In the chase for wives, lovers, ex-lovers and grandchildren, lives are lost.
This movie has the power to move unyielding hearts. The popular stars in take the smaller roles in this movie. Wawuyo (Daughter of a Delegate, Centre 4) Luyombya (presenter on Super FM and freelance actor), Jennifer Busulwa (veteran actress now with Afri-talent) and Ndagire have been shoved aside by the new entrants Catherine Atetyeka and Jonan Kisibo.
After writing, directing and acting in plays for the stage, Ndagire has finally met her true love: film, and she is making sure it does not turn out to be a fleeting infatuation.
Mariam Ndagire is very patriotic. About 10 years ago, when Lingala music from the Congo was popular, she campaigned against it, asking fans to support Ugandan music. The formed her own band, Trends Band, and the public's attention turned from Congolese music to Ugandan.
And now she is fighting on another battle front. She is fighting Nollywood films. But she is not just going to speak against the Nigerian movies, she is going to produce her own films to give people an option.
"We can work under a budget similar to the ones the Nigerians work with and make even better films," she says.
She started performing as a teenager during her O'level days at Kololo SS. She often escaped from school to play small roles in theatre productions around Kampala. Her aunt, on the orders of her mother, once had to drag her off the stage at the National Theatre.
She was later sent to complete her secondary education at Trinity College Nabbingo. She picked the most weird of combinations: Mathematics, Economics, Geography and Luganda (MEG/L).
"Luganda as a subject kept me close to my passion for the theatre arts," she says. She holds a diploma in Music, Dance and Drama from Makerere University and another diploma in Marketing from Nakawa Business Institute (now Makerere University Business School).
Her professional career kicked off with Black Pearls. The group's boss, Omugave Ndugwa, was very conservative. He discouraged adventure and ambition among the young members. Ndagire and Ashraf Ssemwogerere were among the few that tried to take him on. Ndagire would sometimes improvise in Ndugwa's scripts. The older actors didn't like it, but the young ones did.
In 1993, she called it quits. She joined GM TUMPECO as a marketer. But it was only for a year before theatre called her back. It was then that she wrote one of her most highly-regarded plays, Ensitaano. The play was staged in 1996, a memorable year in her career. It was then that she co-founded Afri-Talent with John Segawa and Abbey Mukiibi.
Ndagire is very hard to categorise thematically. She has written about everything, sometimes even stuff that critics would regard as nonsense. Akangodiira (2006) remains one of the shallowest works in recent years. Then she will put up a passionate love story. Sometimes, she goes feminist, sometimes very political (Kikunta e Kungu).
For most of her life, she has been a singer (9 albums to date), playwright, stage actress and director. She now opens a new chapter in her life. That means that she is going to work harder. But will that not drain her? "It cannot," she says with emphasis. She thinks that she has all the time in the world.
Theatre has earned her two career awards, the International Theatre Institute (ITI) Best Actress award and the Golden Drama Foundation award for best female multimedia playwright. Music as only garnered for her nominations but not awards. Whether film will add any awards to her cabinet, only time will tell.
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