By Our Reporter
Ugandan film, “Kony – Order From Above” took home the top gong in the Golden Impala Awards as the Amakula International Film Festival, which is now in its 12th edition, concluded on Sunday at the Uganda Museum.
The movie, which was the opening feature film at the 3-day festival that kicked off on Friday, saw off stiff competition from three other Ugandan movies that included “27 Guns”, “Her Broken Shadow” and “Veronica’s Wish” to win Best Ugandan Feature Film award.
Directed by Ayeny T. Steve, it tells a story of two youth, Otti and Aguti who fall in love during the tumultuous northern Uganda Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency. They are however separated when Otti is abducted at age 11. When they are finally later reunited after she is also abducted, Kony picks interest in Aguti and makes her his wife. Otti is then tasked with the security of Kony’s latest wife Aguti, leaving him torn between loyalty to the rebel cause and his love for her.
The drama convinced the 3-man jury it was deserving of the coveted Golden Impala award ahead of the other movies.
In other awards, Subira(Kenya) won the Best Non Uganda Featured Film while Chilli On The Lips(Cameroon) was named the Best Documentary and the Best Short Film award went to Doubt Out (France).
Jury member Cristiano Civitillo expressed disapproval with length of many of the screened Ugandan movies, saying they were unnecessarily too long.
“The perfect cut is when everything that is been put together is so fundamental to the story that removing a single clip would make the structure collapse and the story not understandable.” He said.
He, however, noted that there has been great improvement in the quality of local productions.
