IMANI went down a treat at the PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL this month in California U.S.A

Screened as part of the CINEMA SAFARI section.

Imani (2010; Uganda / Sweden)–In the course of just one day in contemporary Uganda, we venture into the seemingly unrelated lives of a child soldier, a maid, and a hip hop dancer. A refreshing snapshot of a country settling into a new national identity with richly drawn characters and vivid cinematography. Director: Caroline Kamya. Cast: Rehema Nanfuka, Philip Buyi, Stephen Ocen.

Imani

Caroline Kamya’s fast and confident directing effortless makes the most of the beautiful Ugandan setting. IMANI can be seen as an outstanding example of new African Cinema

This film shows Uganda with serious gaps between the rich and the poor and scars of warfare.

www.afrykamera.pl

IMANI –

By Keith Shiri

This assured first feature from one of East Africa’s most talented women filmmakers deals with three parallel stories in the course of a single day in Kampala and its environs. The beautifully crafted drama takes us into the lives of three characters: a former child soldier, a maid and a hip hop dancer. Mary (Rehema Nanfuka) is an independent young woman who returns from a village to a wealthy suburb in the Ugandan capital, where she works as a maid for a rich couple, while also having to take responsibility for her sister, who is in an abusive relationship. Olweny (Stephen Ocen) is a traumatised 12-year-old, returning home from a rehabilitation centre where he had been recovering after four years soldiering in the bush. Armstrong (Philip Buyi) is a talented dancer and DJ with a turbulent past, who plans to return with his group to the city slums to stage free dance performances, but is confronted by the dodgy characters of those he had left behind. The wide panoramas of the diverse settings and the complexities of all the characters are simply conveyed, while a soundtrack blend of both contemporary and traditional music maximises the film’s charm.

Review 1

REVIEW OF IMANI AT THE SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

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