First, three things –

1. I love My Machrine
2. At 33 years, I am ashamed that I still don’t know enough about my country
3. I love music teachers

 

Then – Amakula Kampala is still on.  Tomorrow, films will focus on cinema from Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa.  If you are interested in the filmmaking process, the Congress on East African Cinema will be discussing “The filmmaker and his/her audience” and “Reaching the local audience with a local product.”  There will also be a special presentation by Ogova Ondego, the director of Art Matters, Kenya.

 

Explaining the three things –

 

Explanation One:

 

There are people who can sit for hours at a desk grinding their way at proposal after proposal, one database after another; answering phone calls, meeting clients, chasing deals … I’m not one of those. I have the attention span of a two-year-old and I am ever so slightly claustrophobic.  As a result, I need the sky, the air, the freedom to leave the office at any time to do things that really make me happy.

 

Enter My Machrine.  I am blessed with the best deputy in the whole wide world.  She’s the ying to my yang.  She complements me and fills in for my weaknesses.  Sometimes, I am tempted to exploit the poor darling because she’s so … available.  Like today.  Taking off three hours in the middle of the day to go for the Amakula Kampala Film Festival and she was so supportive of it.

 

“Go,” she urged me, “Have fun.”

 

And that’s what I did.  Everyone should have a Machrine.

 

Explanation Two:

I hate it when foreigners tell me that I don’t know enough about my country.  I hate it even more when they are right.

 

Ekisil (2005) is a short film on the Karamojong people.  It’s the story of the struggle for peace in the midst of a violent culture of retaliation, retribution and rivalry.  Told through the lives of two Matheniko and Bokora boys – Lokol and Ikale – this amateur, but amazingly good dramatization good triumphing over evil in the midst of an age-old conflict is quite engaging.

 

There are many assumptions that I have made about the Karamojong.  Wrong assumptions.  The assumption that the Karamojong are just one tribe, when in fact they are one ethnic grouping with different tribes that have unique dialects and sometimes very different cultures.  The assumption that violence around cattle rustling is something they have learned to live with and do not change, yet everyday – everyday – a family mourns the death of a loved one to cattle rustling and longs for an end to the chaos.

 

Ekisil (which means peace) is a simple docudrama with great lessons.  Sure it has the odd child with a runny nose, malnourished babies and squeamish cultural practices that foreigners love to see about Africa like drinking of warm blood, rubbing bodies with animal entrails, etc, but during the film you are willing to forgive this.  I think it has something to do with the simple message, the honest dramatization and the prospects for hope in an area of Uganda that myself and the rest of the country have chosen to ignore.

 

Explanation Three:

War/Dance (2007) is a must see.  If you haven’t seen it, do.  Do now, and if you can’t, do soon.

 

I left the National Theatre this afternoon overwhelmed by the strangest emotions.  Emotions that I cannot fully explain or understand.  It is an understanding that can only come with me identifying with everyone on earth as human – as human as me.  It is an understanding that can only come through the beautiful devastation that is music.

 

My best friend, Saison, is one of the most amazing women in the world.  She is a strong, independent single mother, she very beautiful, she has an incredible spirit and best of all – she’s a music teacher.

 

Throughout my 17 years of school, the highlight of my learning experience was found in the music class.  There is something about simple melody, movement and rhythm that reach into the deepest part of every human being.  No one can remember when they first sang, but we know that music is as primal as the dawn of the universe.

 

Music teachers point out who you are in this expanse of sound and where you fit.  They teach you to hear, to feel and to be.  They show you how to use something that is common to all to rise above your circumstances and to reach further and higher.

 

I know this doesn’t say anything about War/Dance, but how can I even attempt to explain it?

 

The stories of three children who have endured the most heart wrenching pain imaginable is not something I can put in words.  To tell you how I felt when one girl told of the slaying of both her parents, their beheading and the boiling of her parent’s severed heads in the family cooking pot … where do I begin?  The trauma of an entire generation is too much for me to comprehend.  

 

When one of the girls said, “I am excited to see what peace looks like,” I felt a chill go down my spine.  It was like an indictment against me and mine.  Who am I to have enjoyed peace?  What did I do to deserve it?

 

And then came the exhilaration and the beauty that came through music and dance as the children of Patongo Primary School prepared for their first appearance at the National Primary Schools Music and Drama Competitions.  Suddenly these children were able to rise above the mire and to float in the beautiful skies of Pader.  They were no longer traumatized.  They were free.

 

War/Dance deserves the international plaudits it has received.  It is beautifully shot, the cinematography is nearly flawless and the plot is extremely evocative.  The directors, Sean Fine and Andrea Nix, are never seen or heard, allowing the story to unfold naturally and seamlessly.  They never preach at you and whatever conclusions you form are yours.

 

 

Amakula ends on Sunday.  Go catch a show before it is over, will you?