Private Project

LONGWAY TO GO

Ham(Echungu Blessed Letia) a street guitarist and passionate father sets off as his daily routine to go play his inspirational music as a massage of hope to the world and to afford a livelihood and education of his 6 year old daughter, Princess(Constance Kisakye Nabukeera). As a single father, he leaves his daughter with a care-taking lady (Nantongo Rebecca) who also owes him a fortune and never want to smile at him.
In his daily quest to collect lots of money to sort out all his worries, this time around he is only woken up out of a very hopeful dream, were he has even afforded meat for a meal, only to realize he was just knocked down by a speeding bicycle that left him unconsciously lying in a wilderness of a forest. With his guitar broken in pieces, he only has one option, to head back home. The journey seems 1000 miles. One of his greatest fears is when the little one becomes the future version of himself.

  • Bijjakuggwa Kawooya
    Director
  • Bijjakuggwa Kawooya
    Writer
  • Andrew Nyombi
    Producer
  • Bijjakuggwa Kawooya
    Producer
  • Patrick Verstraete
    Executive Producer
    Adi Amin's Boat
  • Echungu Blessed Letia
    Key Cast
    "Ham"
  • Constance Kisakye Nabukeera
    Key Cast
    "Princess"
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    11 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 1, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    15,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Uganda
  • Country of Filming:
    Uganda
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    4.6 K Raw
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Bijjakuggwa Kawooya

EMAR BIJJAKUGGWA KAWOOYA is an award winning, Uganda based African Filmmaker, he attended Kampala’s leading Film institution, the Kampala Film School, and further more studied a short Documentary Film Course at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in 2017
His recent credits lay on Black & White (2016), Line Producer and Just Roll it (2011) Director-Winning Audiences Favorite at the annual ZUKA Students Film Festival.
Emar Bijjakuggwa’s greatest passion lies in telling Africanizing cinema, telling the world African stories in their true and non-tampered African context so the whole world can see and understand Africa through cinema.
He is currently working as a Creative Director/Producer with OLa Visualz Studio, one of the leading Film Production Companies in Uganda.
Lets tell our stories so they don’t be mistold.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Long way to go is a story very much inspired by African music, since lots of Africans live on a very extensive cost of living and with a low standard of living; there music is mostly centred of such situations of inspiration for hope.

After listening to ‘Sanyukako’ a song by Henry Tigan my great friend and writer of very composed African music, I was inspired to write a story of a struggling African father who had lost the love of life due to the situation he goes through and always singing to himself if the wife can one day come back to his life so they can live happily together forever.

I started writing this story in 2014 and shot in 2016 since it was a narrow story still being developed. But in early 2016 when I travelled to Luxor, Egypt I met Professor Haile Gerima a renowned African filmmaker in his annual African Filmmakers workshop; he helped me further develop story and helped me conceptualize the reality from the broad expectation that I had as an African Filmmaker.

Gerima showed me the limits of Africanizing Cinema so it can be relevant to all Black people around the world and so they can see their own stories through film. There I had the story narrowed down to 12 minutes from the initial 16.

When I travelled back to Uganda, I had a story to shoot already.
My DP Ali Musoke is a person in met for the first time in Luxor too during the same course of the Gerima session, we interacted so much since we were from the same country, this helped so much to have a DP who you have discussed your story with for a period of over a month, he helped so much with the characterization of the story and casting possibilities. It came so smooth with the choice of the main character who just there and then fitted the story.

Echungu Blessed Letia was a perfect match for the main character because he was already a performing Reggae and freestyle artist.
When the idea was introduced to him, he embraced it as an opportunity since he was a first time film cast, he really did it very well and even now the relationship stands.

And for Constance Kisakye Nabukeera, she is my neice, since my story was talking about a young character, I also tried to give her a first time chance on this one since she very much suited the role, the parents embraced it with curiosity and it finally worked for all of us.