By BAMUTURAKI MUSINGUZI

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The Forbidden, a Ugandan feature film about the daily struggles that come with urban poverty, rape, sexual exploitation and shattered dreams won Best Feature Film Award at the 2018 Golden Impala Awards organised by the Amakula International Film Festival.

The festival was held in Kampala last month.

The story revolves around a poor girl Dian (Leilah Nakabira) and her struggling single mother Ruth (Irene Nalubega). Dian is the brightest student in her class and her mother provides for her by vending fresh vegetables and food by the roadside. 

Ruth is killed in an accident before telling Dian who her father is or where she can find her paternal family.

Dian gets kicked out of her home and gets hired as a househelp in the home of her boyfriend, Joseph Ssendijja (Kaye ‘Trevor’ Rajji). Ssendijja’s father (Badiru Bashir Seif) rapes her repeatedly and infects her with HIV.

Dian later learns that the man who raped and infected her with HIV is her biological father and his son, her boyfriend, is her half-brother.

Although The Forbidden written by Marie Anitah Nakamya and produced by Claire Nampala has a captivating storyline, it falls short in the lighting. In one night scene, we can hear characters conversing in a moving vehicle but we cannot see them as the screen is dark.

Accra Power (Austria/Ghana, 45mins, 2016) won the Best Documentary award. Co-directed by Sandra Krampelhuber and Andrea Verena Strasser, it provides an eclectic mix of perceptions of power in one of Africa’s thriving urban settings.

The film outlines creative and artistic strategies of young Ghanaians at the crossroads of tradition, technological and economic growth, infrastructural deficits and energy crisis.

The Best Short Film award went to Jethro x Jethro (12mins, Uganda) directed by Malcolm Bigyemano.

The newly created Best Student Film award was won by Grace Nabisenke for her film Idi Amin’s Boat (16mins, Uganda).