On Tuesday, Netflix announced the winners of a short film competition, and Ugandan screenwriter and film director Loukman Ali emerged among the top six winners of a short film competition organised by Netflix.
Netflix is the world’s leading streaming entertainment service with 222 million paid memberships in over 190 countries and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
By winning the competition titled ‘African Folktales, Reimagined’, Loukman and five other winners will each receive $25,000 (about Shs90,021,025 million) plus a production budget of $75,000 (about Shs270,063,075 million) to create short films.
In a joint statement, the two organisations said that the short films will be produced by a local production company under the guidance of Netflix-appointed supervising producers and industry mentors from across the continent.
Other winners and their respective countries are Walter Mzengi from Tanzania, Gcobisa Yako from South Africa, Voline Ogutu from Kenya, Korede Azeez from Nigeria, and Mohamed Echkouna from Mauritania.
Loukman Ali is a Ugandan screenwriter and film director with a background in drawing graphic arts.
At the age of 8, he fell in love with filmmaking and started learning various skillsets by watching “How To” videos on YouTube. Although he mainly works in the marketing field, directing TV commercials, he uses his spare time to create feature and short films to continuously improve his craft.
Through this self-motivated training and his graphic art background, he has honed his skills as a director, editor, cinematographer, and animator and looks forward to continuing making genre films and eventually creating international TV series.
He is also, the first Ugandan director to have his movie on Netflix.