It is 3pm and on the set of an upcoming Ugandan film in Kasanvu and Aaron Zziwa Alone, the film director has been shooting this movie for the past six months. Much as he has been part of the industry for the past eight years, Zziwa has never been trained or schooled in filmmaking. Like many other local filmmakers, he is self-taught. by Andrew Kaggwa
Well, I have attended one-day film workshops with both Maisha and Kampala Amakula film initiatives, he says.
When he first joined the industry, shortly after graduating from Makerere University Business School in 2008, it was about the fact that he believed there was no job for him on the market. He had to look at the available options and that is when his passion for acting led him on. Being a graduate of Entreprenuership, Zziwa no longer looks at film as just a hobby but takes it rather seriously.
While on location, he makes actors redo one-minute scenes over eight times in a bid to get cutting-edge performance from them. His belief is that when people start realising the change in the quality of picture and acting, film in Uganda will shift to another level.
Today, he is angered by the fact that when he and his crew first visited this location, the mud and wattle houses were many in number.
And the trench that runs the dirty water was bigger and filthier, in all ways that was a perfect representation of an African slum. But today KCCA has relocated almost half of the kiosks and razed some of the illegal structure. Zziwa feels this has robbed the place of its authentic ghetto feel. Together with the crew, they embark on locating other sites nearby that would still portray the original picture he tried painting on the reel.
Despite being dressed in blue denims, moccasins and a white vest, Zziwa comes across as a composed and soft-spoken character. He describes himself as an actor, screenwriter and film director.
Today must be one of the hardest days though, because he is part of the scenes to be shot and must direct them as well. He, however, gives the reassurance that he is enjoying it.
I usually work with a co-director who is an actor. That person is in charge of directing my acting, he says.
As a writer, Zziwa says, you will always fight with the director not to change what you intended to portray. But if you are wearing the two hats, you can rest assured the story execution is safe, for acting - he just loves it. He has been part of over thirty projects as an actor, costume designer and director. These are mostly renowned projects such as the award-winning Patrick Sekyaya's I Found My Way, The Ugandan, Nafulu and The Last Drop, among others.
But besides working with Sekyaya, he has worked on projects such as The Debt and Perfect Gentlemen. Though it was his latest outing, it is The Superstition that got Ugandans talking. Originally done to appease NGO funding, The Superstition was packaged as a message film with very little entertainment.
In Uganda it is very hard and expensive to put a film out, thus many look out for topics that can be funded, points out Zziwa.
Nominations and awards
It was also at about this time that he met his now good friend, Paresh Gondaliya, a Ugandan Indian with a special dedication to local stories. He was burning with desire to tell a truly Ugandan story, says Zziwa, with a touch of excitement. This is when they collaborated to make The Superstition.
Gondaliya financed much of the production, and since Zziwa no longer needed NGO money, he felt there was no need to limit his script and went on to make it an entertaining movie with a message. The result was the epic picture that is still surprising Africa. Released on July 1, 2014, The Superstition has been nominated ten times for awards, more than any other local film released this year.
At the end of August, it picked up the award for Best Editing/Post Production at the second Uganda Film festival and went on to win Best Feature Film at the Arusha African Film Festival. It was nominated for Best Foreign Feature Film at the Abuja International Film Festival - only losing to Jackie Chan's Chinese Zodiac (the night's biggest winner). In fact, The Superstition was the only African movie in the category.
For me, a nomination was already a win. I felt honoured to be in the same category with such a big world icon [Jackie Chan], he says.
[Discussing with camera crew]
Discussing with camera crew
The film is already slated to screen at the UGU Film festival in South Africa and the Silicon Valley African Film festival in California, among others. Superstition is a fiction film about a man that had never even dreamt of being a father. He learns that he had fathered a child with a prostitute he slept with some years back. However, just as he was learning to love the boy, the child is kidnapped and ritually sacrificed.
Zziwa says his background, especially growing up in Mukono, inspired this story, though he also points to the fact that being part of the Nafulu team made him pay attention to the importance of telling an African story.
Talking to The Observer earlier this year, Gondaliya noted that he was interested in being part of the project since he had read way too many stories in the media about the evil of child sacrifice. Zziwa believes a good film should start with a good script, cast and a creative technical team. To ensure that his technical team gives him their best, he welcomes their decisions and experiments with them, even during shoots.
The Ugandan film industry, according to Zziwa, is growing quite fast.
People are demanding for quality which is a call for us to work harder.
He also thinks the industry needs honest distributors to help get the movies to the end user. He is also irked by the fact that despite the increasing number of cinemas across the country, there is no law governing them, especially when it c
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
12/07/2025
As the death toll continues to mount, with at least 120 killed and more than 170 people still missing on July 10 from devastating Texas floods, a number of broa...
12/07/2025
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., and MIAMI -DirecTV and TelevisaUnivision have signed a deal that will make the ad-supported premium subscription tier of ViX, ViX Premium wi...
11/07/2025
PARK CITY, UTAH, July 11, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 11 producers chosen for its annual Producers Labs, returning to Ucross Fou...
11/07/2025
If you've ever wondered what might be playing in Clark Kent's headphones...
11/07/2025
L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert and General Manager of L3Harris Waco facility Sean Ling held a ce...
11/07/2025
ARLINGTON, Va. WETA, the flagship public media station in the national capital area, has launched WETA+, a new streaming service tailored for the local Washingt...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission has emerged as one of the central players in the broadcast TV landscape in 2025, with its deregulatory policies sparking h...
11/07/2025
Calrec will introduce usability, customization and system enhancements across its entire range of Argo consoles during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Amsterda...
11/07/2025
LONDON Encompass Digital Media said it will support live and on-demand viewing of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup across multiple global regions for sports enterta...
11/07/2025
Two-thirds of broadcast engineers reaped the benefits of a pay raise within the last year....
11/07/2025
CARY, N.C. SmallHD has launched the Quantum 27, a new 26.5-inch Quantum-Dot OLED monitor designed to deliver postproduction image quality in a compact, set-frie...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau and Tegna have entered into a consent decree that will settle an investigation into the accidenta...
11/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following news in early July that Paramount had settled President Donald Trump's lawsuit, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luj n (D-N...
11/07/2025
Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbe...
11/07/2025
Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...
11/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...
11/07/2025
2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...
11/07/2025
A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff
Friday, July 1...
11/07/2025
CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Too Hot to Handle: Italy Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalItaly
Link copied to clipboard
July 11, 20...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Will Release Death Inc. Seasons 1, 2 and 3
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Season 1
Season 2
Se...
11/07/2025
AI and Multimedia Authenticity Standards Collaboration launches two papers to guide the future of AI integration, today at the AI for Good Global Summit
The...
11/07/2025
Ceramics - the humble mix of earth, fire and artistry - have been part of a global conversation for millennia.
From Tang Dynasty trade routes to Renaissance pa...
10/07/2025
The current holder of the prestigious Thomson Foundation Young Journalist of the Year Award has been forced to stop reporting over fears for her safety in Afgha...
10/07/2025
Spotify is turning up the volume on Australian music with a multipronged initiative designed to highlight the dominance of Australian artists on the global stag...
10/07/2025
This is not a drill: Oasis is back on the road-marking its first live performanc...
10/07/2025
The music industry depends on fresh ideas, bold voices, and emerging talent. Yet across the U.K., too many young musicians lack the space to develop their craft...
10/07/2025
NEW YORK - July 10, 2025 - Nielsen, the global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, today announced that it appointed Richard Pacheco as head of ...
10/07/2025
Local newscasts don't exist in a vacuum. News directors and station management constantly evaluate what's working, what isn't and perhaps most impor...
10/07/2025
Lawo has announced that Stuttgart Media University (Hochschule der Medien, HdM) has comprehensively modernized its central recording studio after selecting an I...
10/07/2025
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has opened early-bird registration for the Media Technology Summit, which will take place in a ne...
10/07/2025
NASHVILLE, Tenn. TNDV Television has launched Aspiration 35, a new version of its 40-foot Aspiration truck reimagined for cinematic multicamera productions....
10/07/2025
BURBANK, Calif. Key Code Education, a provider of instructor-led postproduction training, is growing its curriculum with new programs for beginner and intermedi...
10/07/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. Actus Digital will demonstrate how broadcasters can transform compliance monitoring from a necessary expense into a strategic revenue driver at...
10/07/2025
The Federal Register has published a summary of the Federal Communications Commission's Public Notice seeking comments on its ownership rules that lists a d...
10/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Presents the Official Trailer for SuperestarPlay Video
Play Video
Entertainment
10 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard...
10/07/2025
In the race to understand our planet's changing climate, speed and accuracy are everything. But today's most widely used climate simulators often strugg...
10/07/2025
As one of the world's largest emerging markets, Indonesia is making strides toward its Golden 2045 Vision - an initiative tapping digital technologies and...
10/07/2025
10 Jul 2025
VEON and Cohen Circle Secure Investor Commitments for Kyivstar Listing Kyiv, New York, Dubai, and Philadelphia - July 10, 2025 - VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq:...
10/07/2025
5G for all? What the DFL's use of Easy5G and RefCam could mean for events in...
10/07/2025
Save the Date: PGA TOUR Studios Welcomes SVG Remote Production Summit on Oct 14-...
10/07/2025
Cloud on the Road: How Remote-Production-Service Providers Are Adapting to a New...
10/07/2025
Seattle Kraken's Ryan Schaber on the NHL Team Taking Live Game Productions I...
10/07/2025
FOX Sports Reboots Small Control Room in Los Angeles as Hub for Vertical-First P...
10/07/2025
SVG Sit-Down: MSE's Zach Leonsis, ViewLift's Rick Allen Go Deep on Joint...
It is 3pm and on the set of an upcoming Ugandan film in Kasanvu and Aaron Zziwa Alone, the film director has been shooting this movie for the past six months. Much as he has been part of the industry for the past eight years, Zziwa has never been trained or schooled in filmmaking. Like many other local filmmakers, he is self-taught. by Andrew Kaggwa
