Uganda’s Tarantino and his $200 action movies

A Ugandan film company that makes low-budget action movies in the slums has found a cult following online - one US fan liked their films so much, he abandoned New York to become an action movie star in Kampala.

It was December 2011 and things were not going well for Alan Hofmanis.
"My girl dumped me the day I bought the wedding ring," he says. So a friend took him out to a Manhattan bar and, to cheer him up, showed him a video clip on his phone.
It was the trailer for Who Killed Captain Alex? billed as Uganda's first action movie. The minute-long video showed bloody gun battles, speeded-up kung fu fights and computer-generated helicopters bombing Kampala. If you looked closely, you could see that the machine guns - replicas of Rambo's M60 - had been welded from scrap metal, and the bullets carved from wood. Much of the action took place in mud. A high-pitched voiceover announced this was the work of Ramon Productions, and gave a phone number.

The replica of Rambo's machine gun, welded from scrap metal

The clip had an electrifying effect on Hofmanis. "Around 40 seconds into it, I decided: I'm coming to Uganda," he says. "I realised what I'm looking at makes no sense - but it's complete genius."
As programme director for the Lake Placid Film Festival, Hofmanis was used to spotting emerging talent, but he says what he saw here was "off the charts" in its ambition. "In the West, when you have no money, you shoot two people having a conversation… You don't make a war film."