"I did not specifically set out to write on a theme of loneliness."
May 5, 2017 8:57 AM   Subscribe

Filmmaker Dilman Dila describes the joys and difficulties of making a low-budget indie scifi feature film in Kampala. Her Broken Shadow (trailer) is a horror movie about "a single person stuck in one place".
posted by brainwane (3 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I usually hate horror movies but this looks amazing.
posted by lunasol at 2:15 PM on May 5, 2017


I really like this guy's writing:
I woke in my own room after several weeks in strange rooms with this immense feeling of being alone. The year before a long relationship with my girlfriend had come to an end. Luckily I had too much work, and I travelled a lot, and I did not give it any serious thought. Now, the weeks ahead were empty. I had nowhere to go, no work, no girlfriend, just days upon days of being locked up in my bedroom doing nothing, and just like that, the story fell into my lap. I saw the whole film from beginning to end in a flash, and as I got off bed to clean my teeth, I decided to make it. Just like that.
And he does a great job of explaining the problems he faces:
Most grants an African filmmaker can get are European, and most of these grants make it a condition that the African must have a European co-producer (who ends up controlling the project) to get the money. As such, the stories that get told are often those that European producers prefer, that they think will do well in festivals (rarely do they pick stories with commercial potential), stories with headline or NGO issues, like AIDS, genocide, famine, climate change, or stories with stereotypes about African cities like crime in Nairobi and Johannesburg.
. . .
The biggest problem is the lack of people in the film industry who are true sci-fi fans, who would come up with concepts that they have not seen on the most recent Hollywood blockbuster, and also a lack of previous local work to look at for guidance. I feel like I am the first person to walk this road in Uganda.
Thanks for the post, and I hope I get to see the finished movie!
posted by languagehat at 2:18 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


I wonder whether Blumhouse Productions might hear about this and say, "hey, we like low-budget horror....."
posted by brainwane at 2:38 PM on May 5, 2017


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