The season for film festivals in the region is here again with the premier Zanzibar International Film Festival having concluded a fortnight ago.

Rwanda also concluded its film festival (July 22-29) and now all roads are leading to Kampala for Uganda Film Festival to be held on August 22-26, and later on in a yet to be confirmed date, Kenya’s Kalasha International Film Festival will take centre stage. The event was earlier scheduled to be held end of August but was moved to November.

The just concluded Rwanda festival premiered an informative movie from France titled Monsieur Chocolat.

The festival which is in its 12th edition showcased over 50 films from around the world.

Eric Kabera, the organiser of the event and also among the brains behind Hillywood — Rwanda’s version of Hollywood — said of the choice of the films, “The films that were chosen had to be beautifully made, versatile, fluid and offer to change, educate and challenge the status quo.”

Mohammed Ali Ojarigi whose feature film Your Land was screened during the closing ceremony on the final night of the festival said of his first encounter with the festival, “I believe the only setback in terms of creativity and production value is something we also battle with in the United States as people of colour, which is lack of resources and mentorship of people who look like us.

"The great thing is we are living in the best time ever to make films. Technology is more accessible and capturing broader audience in this digital age is right before us. We will not be stopped. The Rwandan youth in film are the future storytellers of Rwanda and giving them a good foundation leads to great stories being told which will enrich Rwanda’s culture.”

One of the winners, Yves Amuli, a Rwandan filmmaker who was awarded for his film Ishaba in the Best Film on Africa category said, “I studied cinema in 2014 with Maisha Film Lab, where I wrote the film. It took me eight months to write it.”

Other big winners were Ben Proudfoot for his film Rwanda & Juliet that won Best Feature Length Film, Andy Jones for I Shot Bi Kidude bagging the Best Audience win. There was also a tribute award dubbed “the East Africa Award” to Mira Nair, film director and founder of the Maisha Film Lab for her outstanding contributions to East African filmmaking. Yves Amuli accepted the award in the absence of Ms Nair.

According to Aimee Mutoni one of the organisers of the event, “No financial profit has been made in this festival, all sponsorships and contributions served to cover the festival expenses.”

“The African film industry is not yet supported as it should be and it’s not exclusively a Rwandan challenge it’s felt across the continent. We need to take control of the narrative since these are our stories to tell, in a sense we need to put ourselves in the driver’s seat. The challenge is the education element which we are involved in and the financial element which is heavily needed,” said Mr Kabera as he expounded on the challenges facing the film industry.

Rachel Ocampo had her work titled Tyson starring Rwanda’s Kennedy Mpazimpaka premiere at the closing ceremony. Her film was shot in the south of Rwanda and tells of how a family that cannot afford to pay the hospital bill for a sick child who ended up spending more time in the hospital.

“I collaborated with people at Kwetu Film and Mashirika Arts to give it an African feel as much as possible,” Ms Ocampo said of her debut directorial film. She has previously acted and been part of dance groups in America where she hails from.

The highlight of the night was the screening of Monsieur Chocolat an award winning French film about a black and white clown duo that has undertones of slavery and debauchery in the height of fame. The film was live streamed, a first for the event albeit hitches that caused a five-minute break to fix the issue.