UCC, Multichoice launch 8th edition of Uganda Film Festival

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) together with MultiChoice Uganda and other partners launched the 8^th edition of its five-day film festival with a cinema opening event at Acacia Mall in Kisementi.

The Uganda Film Festival (UFF) is intended to streamline and develop the film industry in Uganda.

Launched in 2013, the aim of the Uganda Film Festival (UFF) is to provide a platform to air and showcase local content in the film industry, award remarkable industry players, generate revenue as well as promote the industry through trainings in addition to driving interest in Ugandan film both locally and internationally.

Speaking at the cinema opening event, Susan Wegoye, the director of Legal Affairs at UCC said that this year’s edition will run from 29^th March 2021 to 2^nd April, 2021 under the theme, “Rebuilding a Resilient Creative Industry through the Pandemic.”

She added that, “I commend our Ugandan film actors, producers and directors for the continued creative and innovate input towards building a robust film industry.

Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) is mandated to promote sustainable growth and through the Uganda Film Festival (UFF) we have been able to promote the immense talent that sits in our country while ensuring to facilitate a conducive operating environment for our film industry.”

The week-long festival will have film screenings, film trainings for script writers, film exhibitions, workshops among other activities that will culminate in an award gala night on April 2  with outstanding film creations winning awards.

In his remarks, Colin Asiimwe, the head of Marketing at MultiChoice Uganda said that MultiChoice joins this year’s film festival as a platinum sponsor with a variety of prizes for participants in the festival to win from.

He said: "MultiChoice Uganda is vested in forging partnerships that facilitate the growth, development, marketing and showcasing of local content and the film industry at large. As part of our sponsorship, we shall enrol the script writers that emerge from this year’s Uganda Film Festival into the MultiChoice Talent Factory (MTF), a corporate social investment initiative that we launched to train and certify passionate film producers, writers, editors, production managers and actors onto a Masterclass on script writing, which will be coming in the next few months."

MultiChoice Uganda will also be sponsoring two awards this year; the Best Director category and the Best Cinematography category as it strives to support the local content being produced in Uganda. For both these awards, MultiChoice Uganda will offer a cash prize of Shs 10 million and a mentorship programme in South Africa with M-Net Studios.

This year’s categories include; Best Student Film, Best Animation, Best Short Film, Best Documentary, Best Script (Screenplay), Best TV Drama, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Design, Best Feature Film, among others.