Once Upon a Time in Uganda review – celebrating the simple joy of exploding heads on film

Cathryne Czubek’s documentary about an impoverished film-maker and an American superfan veers towards a white saviour narrative but the low-budget movie mogul’s charisma wins out

Here is a documentary about a self-taught film-maker from impoverished edgetown Wakaliga, near Kampala in Uganda, and the American fan who comes to meet him and becomes a collaborator. At first it looks like a bouncy, bright feelgood story barely disguising a white-saviour narrative under the surface; after all, that is what both director Cathryne Czubek and former publicist (and now fan) Alan Hofmanis are. That said, Czubek makes a concerted effort to crosscut between the viewpoints of Hofmanis and the charismatic figure who draws him to Uganda from New York in the first place: uber-low-budget movie mogul Isaac Nabwana, whose story rightly dominates.

Although former brickmaker Nabwana made thousands of bricks by hand (he demonstrates his technique with mud and frames for the camera) to be able to buy his first cameras, don’t mistake his lack of formal film education for naivety. He’s clearly absorbed most of what he needs to know from watching the action films popular in Uganda, featuring the likes of Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee and Sylvester Stallone. Working with an all-volunteer-crew recruited from his neighbourhood, Nabwana started out making endearingly shonky features with off-the-shelf visual effects, miniatures, and green screens so that he could drop in his trademark exploding head VFX. The propmaster lovingly shows off the guns he constructs from scrap metal and wood, while Nabwana’s cheerful wife Harriet helps out whenever she can, as an actor or cameraperson or effectively a producer who raises funds by making cakes. The finished films often are accompanied by live voiceover tracks supplied by local VJs who chuckle away and deliver a steady stream of patter, like Mystery Science Theatre 3000 characters.