At end of the road, what did we pick up along the way?

All things come to an end, and regrettably, so has the 6th Amakula Kampala International Film Festival. When the festival had just began, I had the honour of interviewing a couple of people to find out what they expected from the festival this year. A lot of them to my surprise found the theme too abstract and they were not sure what to get. I remember one gentleman called Paul whom I found with a group of other guy musing over why those guys (the organizers) had to pick such “complicated” things.

I remember listening to all their arguments silently for the slightest hint of objectivity and I was let down. In the course of the festival I had a number of such private discussions that I did not blog about because I was disconcerted by what I heard and saw. I observed that a lot of artists did not support each other where they could not directly and were quick to throw blanket disregard on the same weight and this made me sad for I worried about the future of our arts.

In the beginning the numbers were few (probably because festivalgoers had to pay this time) and it was a big bummer but then attendance picked up and all was good. On the screens, we were treated to a grand feast of several visual dishes. There was a string incisive documentaries, light humorous movies, serious educational movies and little abstractions. I saw art and I saw lack of it. I saw a lot of potential in some of the emerging industries such as Burundi but was also disappointed by some. All in all, it was an experience of different tastes and my palette did not suffer monotony.

But as we close this year’s event, how many steps forward have we taken, and how many steps back? If we were to do this again, what would we do different and what would we do the same? Since this will be my last festival entry this year I thought I should share with a few of my thoughts that have been gathering like a sand storm in this past.

Over the course this event, I have seen many movies, attended many discussions and had several conversations. One question I that found recurrent in people’s expressions was “where is this industry going?”

In the past two years, I have interacted with filmmakers across the board and there is one thing I have observed as a common problem: pretentiousness. A lot of filmmakers like to make off to know all there is to know about film when they haven’t even taken time to understand its most basic pillars. Some of them are too eager to talk about money before they can even master their art and it is evident in their products.

Film is not about good equipment and editing, or lighting and all those superficial things we make a lot of noise about when we are critiquing. It is a combination of so many things at the core of which is concept. Out of a good concept comes communication, the foundation for whatever techniques the filmmaker will chose to tell his/her story. Without this basic foundation a film, however cheap, however expensive is worthless. But this must be followed with investment of time to make sure that every individual element can stand on its own. And that is how good art is made.

But what then would be the yardstick of good art? I had this very same conversation with one film \maker and in one of our discourses, I remember saying this to him; there are geniuses, and there are artists. Geniuses live for art. They breathe it, they eat it, they dream it, and so it comes naturally to them. Artists on the hand are like ore. They are latent with potential, even to surpass the geniuses but they need to be moulded. The trouble with most of our artists is that they are jump out of the fire too soon and end up being half-baked.

Today I will not review any movies. I figured I would use my last entry to share a few thoughts but I will not leave without mentioning one of the movies I saw, "The Roadside", by Kenya's Willie Owusu. It was one of the best movies I have watched at this year's festival. It is one of the nominees for the 5th Golden Impala Awards, and I sincerely hope it wins. It is a very simple movie with a brilliant, intuitive and daring concept and a perfect exhibit of what good filmmaking is really about; making things feel natural.

Stephanie, if you remember our conversation about why film in Francophone countries is far superior to film in Anglophone countries, I watched an interview with Gadalla Gubara just before he died that explains it. The French and the Brits while they were here differed in administration. The French trained their people in the arts and equipped them so they could be happy and let them stay longer. The Brits on the other stamped them out, and there in underlines the difference between the two spheres.

That said ladies and gentlemen, it has been a pleasure sharing my thoughts with you but all things come to an end. Remember to always keep in mind the very important lesson this edition of the Amakula Kampala International Film Festival had for us. The past is very important, if you are to make sense of the future. Adios
*written by Edgar Kangere.