Best TV Series was awarded to Sanyu by Mathew Nabwiso & Ellenah Nabwiso at the iKon Awards in Kampala. Photo/Courtesy
On Saturday last week, the local film industry came together to celebrate the annual iKon Awards in a plush event that was held at the Kampala Serena’s Victoria Conference Hall. The event attended by Nigerian icons Ramsey Noah, Patience Ozokwor and Kanayo O. Kanayo is always a melting pot that brings together vogue and fashion to the fore.
This year, there were a number of takeaways including the direction the industry has taken, coming from a question of lack of inclusion in years such as 2014, when it was hard finding a woman nominated film producer to today, where half the nominees or even more were women producers.
For instance, Nisha Kalema’s Makula won the Best Film award, while the biggest competition were Soccer Heart and Maria by Kevin Jones Nabukenya and Nana Kagga respectively. In fact, all the winning feature films of the night were either produced or directed by women.
Humphrey Namanya, the founder of the iKon Awards observed that later this year, the 2026 edition of the awards will be launched in Nigeria, a partnership between Sauti Plus and actor and producer Ramsey Noah. But one of the biggest revelations at the awards gala, however, was by producer and director Mathew Nabwiso.
During the event, Nabwiso announced that a number of producers came together and legally registered a producers’ guild of Uganda, the first one of its kind in Uganda. A producers’ guild represents, protects, and promotes the interests of producers and the producing team in film, television, and emerging media, offering benefits like seminars, mentoring, and access to special screenings.
The local film industry has many problems which Nabwiso says the industry needs to urgently address by themselves because no one will do things for them. “Uganda Communication Commission (UCC) has sheltered us for years even when it is not their mandate, but we have to stand up and take charge, especially for things that work against us,” he said.
He explained that as a guild they are looking at lobbying, working with policy makers, as well as possible investors.
It is sad that at the moment, as an industry, we have only one content buyer, when they do not feel like buying, the industry generally suffers,” he said.
A producers’ guild comes at the time when the industry is at crossroads. In 2020, because of Covid-19, the industry enjoyed a boom because many Ugandans were at home consuming content available. Their need for entertainment was later quenched when MultiChoice through their M-Net original productions gave Ugandans shows such as Sanyu, Prestige, Beloved and JDC among others, screen time.
However, the same decoders with the channels carrying the popular shows also carried channels with European football, which became a subject of live content piracy.
This piracy has left service providers struggling and local filmmakers have felt the wrath; this was something that Nabwiso highlighted saying that Ugandans may claim to support local content, but going ahead to pirate it is choking it at the same time.
Part of what the guild wants is to protect the careers of producers and improve the producing community at large by facilitating health benefits for members, encouraging the enforcement of workplace labour laws and sustainable practices, and creating fair and impartial standards for the awarding of producing credits. “If you make films and you are using some of these gadgets which counterfeit and pirate content, you are playing yourself,” Nabwiso said.
The guild at the moment is looking at interesting more producers to join their cause while fostering both creative and financial collaboration within and outside Uganda. They are also looking at being at the front in creating Uganda’s first distribution and exhibition channels.
But above all, the guild is looking for a voice, a unified voice that could give them leverage while dealing with corporations, content buyers and of course, the government.
The debut guild’s leadership is comprised of producers such as the Nabwisos, Nisha Kalema, Nathan Magoola, Jesca Ahimbisibwe, Nana Kagga, Richard Mulindwa, Samuel Kizito Savior, Allan Manzi, and Doreen Mirembe, among others.
