Nana Kagga’s Mukisa wins big at Uganda Film Awards 

It was all pomp and glamour at the 10 edition of the Uganda Film Festival (UFF) awards. Spearheaded by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the awards took place on Friday at the Uganda Institute of Information and Communications Technology (UICT) in Nakawa as Uganda’s film industry fraternity converged to recognize the best this year in filmmaking.

Hosted by media personality and actress Malaika Nyanzi and veteran MC Mitch Egwang, the night saw actors and filmmakers walk away with accolades and cash prizes of up to Shs 5 million for each winner in the 24 different categories.

These winners were selected by viewers and a panel of judges led by renowned Nigerian filmmaker, Femi Odugbemi. According to the director industry affairs and content at UCC and UFF chairperson Julian Muhiirwe, the award gala night marked the end of a wonderful two weeks celebration of hard work, creativity and unwavering dedication and celebrate the best of the best in the film industry and achievements in creating cinematic masterpieces in 2023.

“We’re here to honour actors, directors, writers and crew members who have poured their hearts into creating works of art and have displayed their unique talents through craft that will live on for generations to come. The films we have seen over the last two weeks, have been nothing short of extraordinary. They have taken us on emotional journeys, challenged our perceptions and left us with deeper understanding of our country. Each film has been a testament of the power of storytelling and has displayed the incredible talents of the individuals who have brought these stories to life,” she said.

On her part, Irene Kaggwa, the executive director of UCC said that local broadcasters no longer have an excuse that there is not enough local content for them to show because local content creators now produce enough quality content as seen by the increasing number of entries they receive for the awards every year.

“Today, broadcasters can no longer claim that they don’t see the content because as the UFF, we have seen over 3,000 entries over the ten years and this content is all available; this year alone we received 308 entries. I urge our filmmakers to keep producing great content to educate, entertain, inform, market Uganda and harness potential,” Kaggwa added. 

The biggest winner of the night was Nana Kagga’s film Mukisa which won Best Feature Film, Best Production and Best Lead actress in a feature film for Tracy Kababito while Usama Mukwaya’s The Passenger also won several awards for Best Sound, Best Post-production and Best lead actor in a feature film for Henry Nathan Katongole while Mariam Ndagire was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Other winners included Diana Nabatanzi for Best Actress in a TV drama, Amon Nuwamanya for Best Actor in a TV drama, Musa Mwamba for Best supporting actor in a feature film, Florence Naiga for Best supporting actress in a TV drama, Lost for Best Animation film, Akampene for Best documentary, The Kitara Chronicles for Best makeup, Agramon for Best short film, Tales of our Times for Best costume design and Silent Scream for Best student film.

The event saw performances from artists such as Irene Ntale, Jowy Landa, Vamos and Jose Chameleone who crowned the night.

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