Ngalabi Short Film Festival online 2021

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Ngalabi Short Film Festival 2021

From 25th to 27th June 2021, Goethe-Zentrum Kampala celebrated the 5th edition of the “Ngalabi Short Film Festival”, for the first time completely online during the second total lockdown in Uganda due to the corona pandemic.

Besides the daily screening of short films from Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Ruanda, Kenya and Germany, we had exciting live Q&As with filmmakers from Uganda. In addition to the live Q&As, we also screened pre-recorded Q&As with the foreign filmmakers who could not be present at the time of the festival. The sessions were moderated by Sharon Rwaky. Another highlight of the 2021 edition were the panel discussions, which were streamed live on Saturday and Sunday. Exciting topics were engaging the film world on the ground in Uganda. Saturday´s topic was ‘The Magic Gymnastics of Distribution’ regarding the ‘uptown/downtown’ filmmaking scene in Uganda. The aim was not to support the dispute, but rather to seek exchange with each other and to see how we can learn from each other. A highlight was the video at the beginning of the discussion about the local cinemas which are called ‘Kibanda’. Sunday’s topic was ‘YouTube vs. Cinema’ around the best way to get the film work to the audience from the perspective of Ugandan filmmakers. A big thank you goes to Molly from Kampala Film School who helped us a lot in choosing the topics and the panels!

Ngalabi Short Film Festival 2021 was organized by Goethe-Zentrum Kampala/ UGCS in cooperation with Independent Days|Filmfest, Filmboard Karlsruhe e. V., Wikimedia Foundation Uganda and the Ugandan singer-song writer Afrie, our Ngalabi Brand Ambassador. The films were curated by Joel Tugaineyo.

You can re-watch the Q&As and panel discussions on the GZKampala YouTube Channel together with a highlight video of the three days of Ngalabi 2021.