Uganda Film Festival Honours Nigerian Filmmaker Femi Odugbemi

3-time Head Judge of the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards, respected award-winning filmmaker Femi Odugbemi has just returned from another international assignment serving as the Chairman of Jury of the recently concluded 2015 Uganda Film Festival held in Kampala Uganda 25th-29th August 2015.

Odugbemi was appointed to Chair the jury of the Uganda Film Festival as well last year when he headlined the festival's international guests along with Nollywood star actress Patience Ozokwo. At that time the organizers of the festival, the Uganda Communication Commission, through its Executive Director Mr. Godfrey Mutabazi wrote a glowing tribute stating that Odugbemi's "professionalism and commitment displayed during the task, together with the quality of decisions made contributed highly to the resounding success of the UFF 2014.

"It was no surprise therefore that Odugbemi was invited once again to Chair the 2015 Jury along with distinguished international jury members including Dr. Sister Dominic Dipio, Professor of Literature at Makerere University Kampala, international film curator from Germany Ms.Barbel Mauch, President of the East Africa Film Network Mr. Leonce Ngabo of Burundi and Pioneer Ugandan TV Producer Faustin Misanvu.

The Uganda Film Festival in its third outing showcases films of Uganda filmmakers as well as films from East African countries including Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania and Rwanda. The festival also includes other activities such as Exhibitions, a film market, training workshops and Masterclasses. The final ay of the festival was capped with an elaborate gala evening of glamorous red-carpet and awards in various categories.

Speaking at the gala awards, Head Of Jury Femi Odugbemi revealed that the our jury began work over 3 months ago with over 130 entries into the 2015 UFF. The pre-selection process for the competitive categories was electronically conducted over the course of 60 days and 5 nominees per category were identified and announced by the organizers in the first week of August.

The jury then reconvened in Kampala from the 24th-27th August to select the winners. While congratulating the winners, Odugbemi expressed delight at the remarkable progress in the talent and technical quality of the nominated works especially in the areas of storytelling, casting, performance, visual aesthetics, cinematic values, sound and music.

He especially noted the improved quality of Sound, one of the repeated weaknesses observed in the year's jury statement. He encouraged more effort in this regard especially in the areas of additional dialogue recording(ADR), Sound Design, Music score and Final mix.

The big winner of the festival was the feature film "HOUSE ARREST" by Joseph Ken which carted prizes for Best Feature Film, Best Sound, Best Screenplay and Best Actress. Other winners of UFF 2015 include "BODA BODA THIEVES" which won for Best Cinematography and Best Editing, "WALK WITH ME" by Peter Muhumuza and Johan Oetitinger which won Best Short Film, "CHIMP-BODA" by Matovu Francis which won for Best Animation and "HALF A DOLLAR" by Oris Ssebowa which won the Best Documentary prize.