Warlord's Fighters Become Film Stars as Ugandan Cinema Booms

(Bloomberg) -- Opio was 16 when he was abducted by a Bible-quoting warlord and forced into a militia notorious for massacres and sexual slavery. Two decades on, he again took up a rifle -- this time playing one of his former comrades in an award-winning Ugandan movie.

As the cameras rolled, he and other actors stormed a village set, shot at civilians and were ambushed at a river crossing. It was all for ‘The Devil's Chest,' one of two feature films about Joseph Kony and his rebel Lord's Resistance Army that were made on location in northern Uganda last year and stirred some painful memories.

“I felt it all coming back, the frustrations, the helplessness and how sometimes I would feel that I just wanted to die,” said Opio, who's now 38 and spent seven years in the LRA before fleeing and accepting a state-sponsored amnesty. “But at the end of it all, I knew it was just a movie -- I had already left that real life in the past.”

Uganda, too, has moved on from the chaos sown by Kony's militia, which may have been responsible for 100,000 deaths in central and eastern Africa in the past three decades. There's been investment in oil exploration and infrastructure in the north, which the LRA terrorized until 2005, while the capital, Kampala, is touted as a hot new nightlife spot. Now at peace -- and still under the iron rule of President Yoweri Museveni -- U.S. ally Uganda is a regional heavyweight, sending troops to Somalia and South Sudan.

Hollywood Versions

The country isn't a complete stranger to Hollywood: ‘The Last King of Scotland' recreated the despotic 1970s rule of President Idi Amin, while Lupita Nyong'o played the mother of a chess prodigy in Disney's ‘Queen of Katwe,' which takes its title from a Kampala neighborhood. Recent years, though, have brought a surge in locally funded films. Museveni's drive to remain in office may have curbed political expression, but it hasn't dampened creativity in a economy that's almost quadrupled in size since he took power in 1986.

At least 700 Ugandan features and short films have played at festivals in the past five years, according to Ruth Kibuuka, content development manager at the Uganda Communications Commission, the industry regulator. While quality was initially “wanting,” it has “greatly improved,” partly due to technical training, she said.

$300 Budgets

There's still a long way before Uganda challenges Nollywood, Nigeria's film industry that produces movies at a rate second only to India's. That's despite the efforts of Nabwana Isaac Godfrey. The founder of Wakaliwood, a studio that turns out scrappy, fast-paced action movies from a Kampala slum, he says he's directed about 60 since 2005 -- at less than $300 each.

“The industry is growing at a very good speed and it's passion that is driving it,” said Godfrey. His most famous production,‘Who Killed Captain Alex?,' showcases the crude computer-generated effects and over-the-top violence that's won him a cult following outside Uganda.

Timothy Agaba, a 29-year-old accountant in the capital, says Ugandan movies are offering a “new, interesting angle.”

“However much people loved films like those from Hollywood, having our own people bringing to life our history and social life makes it all the more interesting,” he said.

Festival Winner

For director Hassan Mageye, ‘Devil's Chest' commemorates the insurgency's victims while showing that people have moved on. It won best feature at Uganda's main film festival in September, but hasn't yet been widely released. He estimated about 90 percent of the 400-strong cast were affected by Kony's rebellion, including some ex-fighters.

Roger Masaba, who portrayed Kony, said he was advised by some of the cast who'd met the real man. The 47-year-old said he was surprised not everyone off the set in the north expressed dislike for the warlord. When he was in costume, some even thought he was Kony.

Indicted by the International Criminal Court and still on the run, Kony went on to plague South Sudan and the Central African Republic with a much-diminished militia. His former fighters in Uganda were mostly granted amnesty by the government, which has provided counseling and outlawed discrimination against them.

Past Reenactments

There's a strong local appetite for stories about Uganda's past, according to Steve Ayeny, the director of ‘Kony: Order From Above,' another feature about the rebels and their captives filmed at a northern army base. He said about half his 445 actors and extras were former insurgents.

Dominica Dipio, the film festival's chief judge and a writer on African cinema history, said Ugandan movies have tried “to speak beyond the immediate boundaries” of the country and been unafraid to tackle topics such as human trafficking and sexual violence.

Reenacting the lynchings and burning of villages “was not easy,” said Ayeny, who had friends killed during the period his film portrays. “Because they were the truth, we just had to deal with it and say, ya, let's move on.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Okech Francis in Gulu at fokech@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net, Michael Gunn, Paul Richardson

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