Here is a documentary about a self-taught film-maker from impoverished edgetown Wakaliga, near Kampala in Uganda, and the American fan who comes to meet him and becomes a collaborator. At first it looks like a bouncy, bright feelgood story barely disguising a white-saviour narrative under the surface; after all, that is what both director Cathryne Czubek and former publicist (and now fan) Alan Hofmanis are. That said, Czubek makes a concerted effort to crosscut between the viewpoints of Hofmanis and the charismatic figure who draws him to Uganda from New York in the first place: uber-low-budget movie mogul Isaac Nabwana, whose story rightly dominates.
Although former brickmaker Nabwana made thousands of bricks by hand (he demonstrates his technique with mud and frames for the camera) to be able to buy his first cameras, don’t mistake his lack of formal film education for naivety. He’s clearly absorbed most of what he needs to know from watching the action films popular in Uganda, featuring the likes of Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee and Sylvester Stallone. Working with an all-volunteer-crew recruited from his neighbourhood, Nabwana started out making endearingly shonky features with off-the-shelf visual effects, miniatures, and green screens so that he could drop in his trademark exploding head VFX. The propmaster lovingly shows off the guns he constructs from scrap metal and wood, while Nabwana’s cheerful wife Harriet helps out whenever she can, as an actor or cameraperson or effectively a producer who raises funds by making cakes. The finished films often are accompanied by live voiceover tracks supplied by local VJs who chuckle away and deliver a steady stream of patter, like Mystery Science Theatre 3000 characters.
It’s no wonder Hofmanis was entranced, and his respect for Nabwana seems genuine. That said, one can’t help sensing a performative quality in some of the footage Czubek captures here, as if the border between acting in Nabwana’s films and the subjects “being themselves” for the documentary is a bit blurry. Still, Hofmanis seems smart enough to know he has to watch how he presents himself here and that accusations of white saviour patronage will be inevitable. He and Nabwana have a genuine breach over creative differences two-thirds into the running time that properly adds a bit of drama to the story, and you have to respect the way that Nabwana refuses to change his style in order to access the film festival and arthouse circuit abroad; he doesn’t want to make poverty porn to let white liberals purge their guilt about post-colonialism, he wants to blow shit up and have fun. And to make money, which is tangentially connected to why he and Hofmanis stop talking after Nabwana agrees to turn one of his films into a TV show for a local media magnate. It’s nice to see the old tension between selling out and staying pure never goes away in any corner of the film-making world.
• Once Upon a Time in Uganda is released on 5 September in UK cinemas.
