We Have No Choice but to Develop Our Film Industry – Mutabazi

Eng Godfrey Mutabazi, the Managing Director Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has highlighted an urgent need for the country to harness its talent in the entertainment industry, or risk an intensified unemployment problem.

Mr Mutabazi warns that the world is fast approaching an era where entertainment will employ the largest bulk of workers, as the other jobs disappear.

“The creative industry is one that’s becoming the next industrial revolution around the world,” he says.

“The prediction is that, it is going to be the only business in the future because with the artificial intelligence and all these technologies coming, machines are going to take over.”

“The only activity that mankind is going to be preoccupied with, will be entertainment. This is where we are going.”

As such, Mutabazi says Uganda needs to aggressively groom its talent in the arts sector, which he says is not in short supply.

“We have a lot of talent in storytelling, music, comedy etc. Even right now some of the world’s biggest economies are relying on the industry such as India, Nigeria and California.

UCC has over the past years intensified its promotion of local arts, especially the movie industry, through a number of initiatives, one of them the annual Uganda Film Festival.

According to Mutabazi, the most recent episode of the festival has been the biggest and most successful, in terms of quality and number of participants.

“This year’s participation was impressive, but next year we will even expand more to include many more international judges and people, with focus on quality,” he says.

Among other measures, UCC is enforcing the law that requires Ugandan media houses (electronic) to air at least 50% of locally made content.

“We are now at 50% on media houses local content but we are looking at 70% and we are going to ensure that we get there.”