Wakaliwood

By Nick Adams

Ramon Film Productions better known as Wakaliwood is a film studio based out of a slum in Uganda. The film studio’s founder and director Isaac Nabwana is sometimes compared to the infamous Quentin Tarantino. Wakaliwood has released cult classic action movies such as “Who Killed Captain Alex” and “Ebola Hunter.” Nabwana has been known to make films with an incredibly low budget. Some Wakaliwood movies are made for less than $200.

Nabwana, who grew up under a brutal regime in Uganda, became inspired by popular action and karate movies in his youth. In an Interview with PBS Nabwana stated that many of his influences include Rambo, Schwarzenegger, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Wang Yu and others. Nabwana called Chuck Norris his favorite actor and influence. In 2005 he first ventured into filmmaking. Nabwana practiced his craft by watching editing and filmmaking tutorials on Youtube.

Wakaliwood has been known to be very adaptable and innovative. The company makes props out of common DIY items and uses condoms filled with red food coloring to simulate bloody gunshots on their actors. Wakaliwood’s props master can find many movie props in scrapyards of the slums. Nabwana’s filmmaking technique as he has coined it, includes the use of as much action and comedy as possible. He believes that having those two qualities will produce a good Wakaliwood movie.

Stars of Wakaliwood movies earn their profits by selling DVDs door to door before the movies begin to be pirated around the world. Nabwana’s dreams of filmmaking greatly influenced Uganda. A country that used to have less than three movie studios now has over 500 hundred. Wakaliwood has blown up across the globe, it especially has prominence in meme culture. Some people may view Wakaliwood as a joke, but it is clear that Wakaliwood has inspired a whole country. The people in the slums of Uganda have new inspiration and motivation to achieve their dreams thanks to Nabwana and his movie studio.