Imani
Caroline Kamya
Uganda/Sweden/Canada
2010, 82 min
World Premiere
21 February 2010
Delphi Filmpalast, Berlin
Cast: Rehema Nanfuka (Mary), Philip Buyi (Armstrong), Stephen Ocen (Olwenyi)
One of eight Forum films nominated for this year’s Best First Feature prize, Caroline Kamya’s Imani embodies a number of firsts: the first fiction film by a local film-maker to depict the war-torn Gulu province in Northern Uganda, the first feature to be filmed in the local languages of Luganda and Acholi, and the first use of Red camera technology in Uganda.
Opening with a quotation from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, Imani recounts a day in the lives of three people in Kampala and in Gulu province. Mary (Rehema Nanfuka), a maid in the house of a high-society Ugandan couple, finds herself in sudden need of a lot of cash to help her sister. Twelve-year-old Olweny (Stephen Ocen) takes leave of a rehabilitation center for child soldiers to return to his parent’s village. And break-dancer Armstrong (Philip Buyi) comes to uneasy terms with a boyhood friend, now a gangster kingpin, to salvage an important performance of his socially progressive dance group.
Caroline Kamya:
“One of the most important aspects of Imani for me was the strong cast. As we have little to no tradition of filmmaking in Uganda, and this was the first of its kind from a local filmmaker, there are no casting agencies through which to access talent. In addition we have a strong theater tradition but I was not keen on using theater actors for my narrative film. Hence the open call began with posters at our National Theatre in Kampala. From over 300 people who attended the open auditions, I selected 40 to attend an intensive actors’ boot camp that I ran with an acting coach from Kenya. From this I selected a wonderful cast of non-actors and even some runners for the crew.
"We were able to edit the film at my small production studio. We were running out of funds so I had to continue and complete the whole edit at home in the evening while running my production business by day. This was a very tough time for me personally, but also a blessing in disguise – I got the final product I wanted.”
Employing the Red One camera, which in the right hands can produce rich filmic effects without blowing out the budget, Kamya and cinematographer Andrew Coppin composed original, memorable images of city and village. A man hauling a sofa perched on the back of a scooter. Two friends playing bottlecap checkers. The pleasure of riding on the back of a pickup truck on a country road.
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