First basketball film in the works

Dummy of the Film poster

The genres and styles of Ugandan cinema have evolved over time and as film makers get bold and confident, newer ideas are being developed for future projects.
Just last year, the first ever Ugandan dance movie was premiered, a comedy, horror and action packed. It’s like film makers are ready to undertake any project as long as it gives them an edge.
They are not done yet, on Sunday 16th at National Theatre, an audition was held for Uganda’s first ever sports movie.
Basket 53 is a basketball romantic drama whose story rotates around this boy whose desire is to take the game to the next level. However, his love for the game meets huddles as his father won’t let him play the game.
It’s basically a film about pushing for what you’re passionate about even when everyone doesn’t believe you should.
On Saturday, the producers held the second audition to continue screening the successful candidates from the first audition, the successful candidates here will go through another tougher test where the final cast will be chosen.
As you may know, when it comes to basketball, swag, height and accents usually come in and thus this audition was no different.
Tall budding actors turned up in big numbers, some were outrightly good, others moderate and most of them were just there!! One thing they all had in common was their quick adoption of the accent and swearing they’ve indeed grown up speaking that way.
But you couldn’t blame them, Basket 53’s executive producer, lead actress and one of the panel judges is Robin Kisti, I guess her presence convinced them that she wanted to hear them speak with an accent.
The girls were however intimidated by her presence, one of the hopefuls, a clear Lupita Nyongo look alike wanted to woo the producers with a house girl role if available (guess she had just watched 12 years a slave), she became almost speechless when Kisti asked her to act.
The best auditions belonged to reknown actors Diana Kahunde and Edwin Mukalazi. Though, Kona actor Prynce Joel Okuyo, just carried the day with his almost natural audition as the coach, he’s simply flawless that you may not know when he’s done acting, he lives the role that after he was done, he received a standing ovation and the role.
Nevertheless, even when the project looks promising, their script strongly needs a redress. Its entirely written in English and at many times made it hard for people to show emotions in the language. Then some lines in there really sounded cliché and borrowed from various romantic dramas, most of the times, we didn’t get the feel of Ugandan basketball in there, it was more of NBA.
Shooting starts in June and will last two months. The movie stars, Robin Kisti and Observer’s sports and entertainment journalist Felix Eupal in the lead roles.