Ugandan films gross over Shs50m in 2024 

While previous efforts to get Ugandans to watch Ugandan films have registered some successes, observers hold that the feats somehow fall short. Take Kampala Cinema Night. Started by Film Club Uganda’s vice president and actor, Godfrey Musinguzi, it takes place every Wednesday at the National Theatre. Shorn of any marketing drives, the nights, besides being consistent, have struggled.

Elsewhere, initiatives such as African Movie Night, Nteredde Documentary Showcase, and Kampala Shortfilm Showcase have reaped the whirlwind. Whereas other initiatives such as Matatu Filmstage have been successful, they too are not frequent. Matatu Filmstage, organised by Film Possible, an organisation that nurtures and trains young filmmakers, happens annually at Century Cinema and later for a weekend around different parts of Uganda. The rest of the year is then spent taking the films around the world. It is currently showing in Tanzania.

Kwiso Mu Cinema by Sauti Plus is always a hit in Kampala and surrounding downtrodden areas. The initiative spreads messages on reproductive health using film. Most of their films are watched for free. It is an outlier primarily because most Ugandan filmmakers try to sell local films as bankable products people should pay for. 

Critics continue to advise that it makes little sense to invite the public to watch works of art free as was the case with Sauti Plus’s Sabotage and When You Become Me.

Showcasing cinema
This was partly the reason why the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) partnered with Century Cinema to showcase local films in a more consistent way. Known as the UCC Night, it’s a Ugandan film screening taking place across three of the Century Cinema venues and two venues in Mbarara and Entebbe. 

UCC Nights were launched on February 15 at Century Cinema in Arena Mall. That same day at Acacia Mall, Mathew Nabwiso’s collaborative film with Sauti Plus, Sabotage, was premiering. All this was a day after another Ugandan film, My Love From Another Land, a romantic comedy, also hit the big screen.

But was any of that worth anything? Last week, UCC released the report of all the film screenings they organised for the past six months. The numbers reflect the attitude filmmakers and the audience have towards the industry. When it comes to sales, none of the films that UCC Night screened between February and mid-May managed to sell 100 seats in all the Century Cinema halls at Acacia in Kamwokya, Arena Mall in Nsambya, and Metroplex Mall in Naalya. 

Charles Luzindana’s Fierce Agreement was one of the most attended films, selling 81 of 101 available tickets at Arena Mall. Yiga Sadat’s 2023 film, Kitara Chronicles, is another one that managed to get people watching, selling 79 tickets at Arena Mall too. Other films within the UCC Night arrangement barely sold 50 tickets. 

However, at the same time, Sabotage premiered on February 15 at Acacia Mall and stayed in cinemas for three weeks. It screened at both the Arena and Metroplex in the days that followed. The film managed to gross Shs15 million in a week, making it the first Ugandan film to achieve this.

For the UCC Night, the performances of films improved when the fortnight-long Uganda Film Festival, also organised by the UCC, kicked off. While the numbers shot up by 50 percent at Arena Mall and Acacia Mall’s Century Cinemas, a threefold increase was registered at Metroplex. 

Between May 24 and June 6, the eve of the festival, at least two films, Makula and The Present Past, sold out. Two others managed to sell more than 100 tickets. Makula sold out Arena Mall’s cinema 101 capacity hall, where tickets were Shs15,000. The film made Shs1.5m in one screening, though after taxes and cinema fees, the producer made a clean Shs641,950. The Present Past sold out Acacia Mall’s 195 capacity hall, with tickets selling for Shs15,000 as well. The film collected Shs2.9m before taxes and cinema fees. 

The films screened by UCC Night altogether made Shs43.5m before taxes. After taxes and cinema fees, local films made Shs18.4m.

The details
If one is to, however, factor in films such as Sabotage, Unheard, Ghetto Mama, Leila, and My Love From Another Land, among others, local films could have hit close to Shs60m at the box office.  Much as the number looks good, it is flattering since most of the films that have screened over the past six months needed more than Shs60 million to be made. 

Unheard, for instance, had a budget of more than Shs80 million; Karamoja was shot at a budget of Shs150 million; both films were products of UCC’s Content Support Programme. Karamoja only made Shs615,000 from its lone screening at Metroplex in February; only 41 people were in the cinema.

According to Acram Juuko, a creative writer, the numbers are promising, but they wish films could make much more than that in a shorter time. Most Ugandan films, unlike their Hollywood counterparts, are in cinemas for only the premiere. Whereas a Hollywood film spreads its risk three times a day, seven days a week, across three cinemas, most Ugandan films will screen once on only one screen. Thus, they will have a chance to be available for movie fanatics who show up without a clear choice of film to watch.

It is thus not surprising that Black Panther and Queen of Katwe could generate Shs646m and Shs180m respectively. They are the most-grossing films in Uganda. 

Ugandan films that have tried to stay in the cinema longer have, unsurprisingly, had better fortunes. Sabotage made Shs15m in a week, Veronica’s Wish made more than Shs10m in seven screenings, Kony Order From Above, with the Oscar selection buzz, generated Shs8m in seven screenings, and Kafa Coh grossed Shs4m in five screenings (excluding the sold-out premiere). Juuko says that sometimes the biggest trick is not the story but the way the specific film is marketed. 

Uganda’s problems 
During the Uganda Film Festival masterclass, UCC’s Medi Kaggwa noted that most Ugandan filmmakers don’t take marketing seriously. The filmmakers believe that everything else will fall into place the moment they have their film.

“There is a lot of learning that still needs to happen,” he said, adding, “Most people don’t even know who they are making their films for.”

Satish Guna, the Century Cinema general manager, told Sunday Monitor that the cinema wants to have more local films and is willing to partner with local filmmakers to see that their films make money for them.

“However, most local filmmakers don’t have a clear plan for marketing and release. It would have been easier to partner with local filmmakers if they had a clear schedule,” he said, adding, “For instance, it would have been better if the cinema knew the films coming out in December, at least in January. It is easier to walk the marketing journey with you.”

Ugandan films have also struggled with the fact that there’s no clear distribution channels. For most international films, cinemas deal with the distributors. It is distributors who deal with issues of marketing, booking billboard space and TV spots. It is also the distributors that deal with the cinema to ensure that the producer or filmmaker doesn’t go through the trouble of booking the cinema space, it is the distributor that deals with all that.

The cinema has, at the moment, forged a relationship that will see them receive local films through UCC as a distributor. One of the things they are looking out for, according to Juuko, is ensuring local films stay in the cinema longer, but above all, he says there’s priority in building an audience that will demand the films on a daily basis.