Once Upon a Time in Uganda (2021)
If you've spent any time in the more obscure corners of the internet, you may already have encountered Wakaliwood, the lo-fi Ugandan film studio that operates out of the Wakaliga slum in Kampala and somehow manages to produce feature-length action films on budgets that wouldn't cover a decent catering spread on a Hollywood set. The studio is the creation of Isaac Nabwana IGG (the IGG standing for "I Got Goals", which tells you something about the man immediately), a self-taught filmmaker whose unshakeable love for the American action cinema of the 1980s drives him to make film after film regardless of what resources are, or more often are not, available to him. The resulting movies, among them Who Killed Captain Alex? and Bad Black, have gathered a devoted cult following online, celebrated for their raw energy, cheerful chaos, and a spirit that is genuinely hard to manufacture. Whether or not they're your cup of tea as films (and they are, admittedly, something of an acquired taste), the story behind them turns out to be rather something else entirely.
That story is what Cathryne Czubek brings to the screen in this 2021 documentary, produced through Wonderview Studios and running to a brisk 94 minutes. Czubek is a documentary filmmaker whose previous work has tended towards portraits of colourful, driven individuals operating well outside the mainstream, and this subject fits her sensibilities rather neatly. The film doubles as the chronicle of an unlikely transatlantic friendship, the one between Nabwana and Alan Hofmanis, a New York film programmer who stumbled across Wakaliwood's output and essentially upended his own life to help bring it to a wider audience. It is the sort of stranger-than-fiction setup that documentary filmmakers dream about landing, and Czubek had reportedly been following her subjects over a number of years to get the footage she needed. The result is a portrait of creative obsession that sits somewhere between a music-industry buddy story and a collision-of-worlds comedy, though with a genuine undercurrent of tension as international recognition begins to pull the two men in different directions.
The cast of characters here is, in the best possible sense, a naturally cinematic one. Nabwana himself is a charismatic and quietly formidable presence, the sort of person whose conviction in what he is doing is so total that it becomes contagious. Hofmanis, by contrast, provides much of the documentary's more overtly comic energy, a man visibly out of his depth in Kampala and yet utterly committed to his mission. Around them, figures like Bisaso Dauda, V.J. Emmie, and Asaba Jumah fill out the Wakaliwood universe, each of them colourful enough to sustain their own film. It is worth noting that Czubek was working with a production that almost certainly didn't have significant financial resources behind it, which gives the documentary a scrappy, on-the-ground quality that is, appropriately enough, very much in keeping with its subject matter.
I sat through Who Killed Captain Alex?, Bad Black, and Crazy World, and I just didn’t enjoy any of them. I fully get the appeal of the Wakaliwood phenomenon. A tiny budget, a massive dream, and a genuine, unironic love letter to 80s action cinema rather than a cynical parody. But the execution simply didn't do it for me.
So, when I started watching Cathryne Czubek’s 2021 documentary Once Upon a Time in Uganda, I was fully bracing myself for a tedious endurance test. Instead, I found myself genuinely entertained by the chaotic, behind-the-scenes reality of how these bizarre movies actually come to life.
The film centres on Alan Hofmanis, the American who stumbled upon director Isaac Nabwana’s work and became his unlikely, fiercely dedicated champion. Watching Hofmanis try to market these ultra-low-budget Ugandan action flicks to bewildered Western festival-goers is a cracking narrative thread. The journey of trying to bridge the gap between a makeshift studio in Kampala and the international arthouse circuit is infinitely more fascinating than the rubber machetes and green-screen helicopters of the source material. It’s the human story of obsession, cultural collision, and sheer stubbornness that actually works here, providing a brilliant contrast to the films themselves.
That being said, as a piece of documentary filmmaking, it’s really just fine. It’s certainly interesting and provides a highly watchable look at this quirky cinematic microcosm, but it’s probably not going to impress everyone. The pacing can be a bit of a mess in the middle act, and it doesn't quite dig deep enough into the broader socio-economic context of Uganda, preferring instead to stay firmly in the feel-good territory of its eccentric subjects. It’s a fun, engaging slice of niche film history, but it lacks the profound journalistic weight to elevate it beyond a solid curiosity.
At its core, this is a thoroughly decent piece of cinema that succeeds precisely where the films it champions do not. Czubek has crafted a highly entertaining, deeply human portrait of dreamers chasing an impossible cinematic high, even if the documentary itself remains a bit lightweight. It’s a cracking watch for dedicated film nerds and casual viewers alike.
Once Upon a Time in Uganda is, in the end, the sort of documentary that works best when you come to it already curious about the edges of world cinema, or at least curious about what happens when two very different people decide, against all reasonable expectation, that a shared dream is worth the bother. It sits comfortably alongside other niche-but-rewarding docs about creative communities doing things their own way, and if it doesn't quite have the rigour to make it onto anyone's essential list, it has more than enough warmth and oddity to be worth 94 minutes of your evening. Sometimes a film that knows exactly what it is, and nothing more, is precisely what you were after.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2021 | Watched: 2026-07-19
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Once Upon a Time in Uganda (2021) on YouTube
Where to watch
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