Last week, the ninth edition of the Ngalabi Short Film Festival took place at the Goethe Zentrum in Kamwokya. The festival, as the past eight editions, is a celebration of short films from around the world. With short films such as Joy Alisanyukirwa’s Falling Out, Doug Mulumba and Cyrus Bugaba’s Nedda, Anthony Ngachira’s Know Thy Body, Know Thyself, Lloyd Lutara and Tayo Shonubi’s The Blanket, Gilbert Lukalia’s 1992 and Abigail Arunga’s Bella is Dying Maybe Next Week, among others, the curators put together a thought-provoking selection which still managed to entertain in equal measures. Many of the films, like most short films, are first time productions of emerging producers or at other times, actors who decide to write films that they believe will not be handed to them by the prevailing producers.
For instance, when Doreen Mirembe’s Dog Story came out, she confessed she wrote it for herself, not waiting to be cast. This is a constant; Cyrus Bugaba, for instance, wrote it with Doug Mulumba for himself, so did Tayo on The Blanket. Both films were part of this year’s selection from Uganda. Nedda is a story of a man who nearly loses his mind after losing a loved one to malaria, while The Blanket almost looks at generational trauma, when a wife is handed a blanket by his mother-in-law, she is determined to get rid of it to break a generational curse. Besides the two films, however, there were a number of amazing films selected for the festival, both local and international but all critical in many ways. Local film, Jimbi, questioned good people who keep quiet in the face of adversity; a story of a man who slowly watches himself turn into a mythical creature as punishment for ignoring a rape victim’s call for help.
