Raymond Baguma
18 February 2008
Kampala — UGANDAN female film-makers will have a reason to smile when a project to support their film works globally kicks off here, courtesy of Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI).
The project is being spearheaded by three American and Canadian women of Ugandan origin who are members of WIFTI.
WIFTI is a US-based nonprofit-making network with over 10,000 members worldwide. The network is dedicated to enhancing professionalism for women working in film, video and other screen-based media.
Mirembe Nutt-Biriggwa, Ssanyu Nutt-Biriggwa both Ugandan-Americans, and Beatrice Babirye, a Ugandan based in Canada, have partnered to open the WIFTI-Uganda Chapter.
Babirye, a professional film-maker and member of the WIFTI-Toronto Chapter says: "There is passion in Uganda to tell stories but we can no longer sit around the bonfire to tell the stories. Women have been disadvantaged and the chapter will give them a platform to tell their stories and shoot films."
Some of her works include a film titled Silent Journey which rotates around a young woman grieving for a lost twin brother. The film also tackles the issue in Africa of burying the dead in a foreign land.
Babirye won an award to come to Uganda to showcase the film through the Canadian Council for the Arts, which was showcased during the fourth edition of the Amakula festival.
The three women explain that the Ugandan film industry is underresourced and there is a shortage of professional women film-makers. The few that are there also work under harsh conditions.
Mirembe is an assistant director of the New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT), an umbrella organisation of WIFTI. She is also a poet and has worked in various capacities on a number of film and television productions in New York.
She holds a degree in Literature in English and has a rich experience in film-making, having worked on the same alongside acclaimed actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
The opening of the WIFTI-Uganda Chapter is advantage to the Ugandan female film-makers who will be exposed to training workshops for film producers, directors, camera operators and editing.
The Uganda Chapter will set up a database to be accessed by foreign film-makers who may come to Uganda looking for skilled film-makers. This, Mirembe says, will help open up job opportunities for Ugandan women.
Mirembe adds that they are also to seek the involvement of acclaimed film producer Mira Nair, who is an honorary member of New York Film and Television (NYWIFT) and director of Maisha Film Laboratory for East Africa. Nair recently received the Muse Award from the NYWIFT.
Babirye has produced a documentary on the recent Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting opening ceremony with renowned TV journalist Bart Kakooza. The documentary, to which she was the first assistant director and producer, is titled Journey to Self-realisation.
She made an earlier attempt at screening the Buganda folktale of Kintu and Nambi with a narration based on the female protagonist Nambi. However, she encountered setbacks and the project was suspended.
She explains that she required endorsement from Buganda Kingdom, but the project was viewed as a threat to the Ganda traditional norms and culture.
Ssanyu is a maternal and child health expert. She is researching about an upcoming filming project to deal with issues that affect women worldwide, particularly HIV/AIDS. She is a volunteer with Operation USA, a California-based NGO.
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