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REVIEW 1

One of the many impressive sequences in Imani, a film by Ugandan director Caroline Kamya, happens at the beginning of the third act. An elderly black African man is a passenger on a motorbike that’s heading deeper and deeper into the slums of Kampala. He is traveling from his employer’s home in the affluent quarters of the city to the home of a woman who buys cold and hot merchandise from the most desperate people in the city. He arrives at the buyer’s home, announces he has something to sell, is led into the living room, takes a seat, pulls a gold necklace from his

pocket (“made of gold in Dubai”), and hands it to the buyer. As the buyer examines the necklace, we notice that the living room walls are covered with mass-produced portraits of a white (almost Scandinavian) Jesus. As the two very black Africans haggle about the price, 30 or so very white Christs crowd the walls. Indeed, the only whites or Europeans in this film are either in pictures or flat-screen TVs.

In one sense, the film is about black skin, its unexplored (or rarely explored) textures and tones. The lighting and cinematography, which are by Andrew Mark Coppin, bring to the surface of the screen the sculpturality of the black face. In some scenes, we lose the course of the story and find ourselves exploring the slope of a nose or the summit of a chin. In another sense, the film is also about the Red One camera. This new technology is able to penetrate one of the poorest societies on earth (according to Wikipedia, just over 50 percent of Ugandans live “slightly below the international poverty line of US $1.25 a day”) and connects its black bodies, black villages, black slums to the powerful circuits of the global image industry. And now the poorest Africans can look as beautiful, as stunning as the richest Europeans. The Red is taking us to the promised land of democratic representation.

Lastly, Imani is about the near-non-narrability of postneoliberal space. The three stories in the film are not fixed but float and dissipate like gases. And is this not the condition of Gilles Deleuze’s control society? A world that has transformed all stable things (factories, schools, stories) into “a spirit, a gas”? Imani is the most important film to come out of Africa since Tstosi. Harvard Exit, Fri June 11 at 4:30 pm.

“Best Full Length Feature Film Director” for Director Caroline Kamya and her film IMANI. For its freshness and subtlety, which manifests the capacity of the new generation of African filmmakers to express their vision of the world.

“Best Actress in Full Length Feature” for lead actress Rehema Nanfuka. For her gentle and congenial interpretation of a woman trapped in a difficult life situation.

Imani vibrantly captures three vignettes of life in modern day Uganda: A child soldier returning to the parents who could not protect him, a woman fighting to get her wrongly accused sister out of jail, and a youth dance troop leader struggling to simply get through a hometown performance. These seemingly disparate stories slowly fuse into a profound singular narrative as the characters reveal themselves to be uniformly off balance in their own lives, and the world around them. Caroline Kamya’s fast and confident directing effortlessly makes the most of the beautiful Ugandan setting. With a rich and varied soundtrack, and the restless energy of the dancers it follows, Imani sprints by at the pace of a far less substantial film. Kamya’s unadorned approach to her characters and the film’s straightforward and unflinching script, provide an intimate exploration of characters who will likely remain far from resolution for some time to come.

The prestigious African Movie Academy Awards were held in Nigeria on the 1oth of April 2010 over the weekend. Director of IMANI Caroline Kamya and lead actress Reheman Nanfuka were invited to attend as nominees. 

The redcarpet event was attended by the top african movie elite and African Americal Hollywood actors CCH Pounder of “The Sheild and the Xfiles” and Gynn Turman most famous for “The Wire”.

IMANI won top honours for an african language film “BEST FILM” and Most Promising Actress for Rehema Nanfuka.

Check out the video clip on IMANI YouTube. 

Well done to all the cast and crew of IMANI. Next is the premiere in Kampala.