AFRICA Wakaliwood joins Nollywood, YouTube distribution

The production values, and recording equipment, are far below what a typical Western student can access - but this trailer alone has nearly 3m hits

Bit of a wider perspective on how the film industry works in a neglected (in terms of media coverage or awareness) market, Africa.

Nigeria's Nollywood has earned a reputation as artistically and commercially significant, now comes Uganda's Wakaliwood...

Consider the incredible kit and resources you can access as you read about Isaac Nabwana, shoestring film producer. Sample paragraphs below. 

See Quartz Africa's full article.

On the African continent and beyond, Nigerian movies have created the template for how to market and distribute African culture to the rest of the world via feature film. Nollywood has created huge stars over the last two decades. Many African countries have tried to come up with their version of Nollywood, itself a Nigerianization of Hollywood, but few countries have been able to register meaningful success. Nollywood’s success has been attributed to its inclination for telling African stories never before captured by western movies. This has kindled a cultural phenomenon across the continent, with Africans of all socio-economic status seeing themselves in one way or the other in the movies....Today, the Wakaliwood movies’ stunts and sound effects indeed look outdated and rudimentary compared with even the most basic made-for-TV movie in the US. But, Nollywood started 20 years from a similar basic point with its outlandish tales, poor narrative structure and weak production values, but today much of that has improved and it generates $600 million a year for Nigeria’s economy....The 42-year old Ugandan, a director at Ramon Film Productions, is synonymous with Wakaliwood, Uganda’s fledgling homegrown movie business. He has produced over 40 low-budget movies at a makeshift studio in the slums of Wakaliga in Kampala. With Who Killed Captain Alex (2010), an action film registering huge success on YouTube (thetrailer has over 2.6 million views), it could be just the start for Uganda’s keen movie fans. At the time he was just starting out in 2005, Nabwana never imagined that anyone beyond Wakaliga slum would watch his movies. But, YouTube has helped bring Wakaliwood to the world.

...“When I uploaded the movie on YouTube, people loved it. It was the first action movie made in Africa by Africans,” he says. “It cost less than $200 to produce the movie. We improvised a lot of the equipment we used. Moreover, no one was paid to take part in the movie.”