Battle of the Souls is a 2007 supernatural Ugandan thriller directed by Matt Bish. It featured in the 28th African Film Festival of Verona (Italy). Dubbed the 'first' Ugawood
feature film, it was also Matt's maiden film after returning home to
Kampala in 2005 from film school in Amsterdam. He assembled a cast that
made film history. It received 10 nominations at the 5th Africa Movie Academy Awards and eventually scooped the awards for Best Visual Effect and Best Supporting Actor.
Plot
A young reporter (called Ryan, played by Matthew Nabwiso) loses his girlfriend and job in one day. Then one evening while drinking with his longtime buddies at a bar, he comes across a cash-filled briefcase belonging to a mysterious underworld lord. Greed and conflict over the possession of the money begins to erode their friendship. Depressed and in a vulnerable position, Ryan agrees to join the underworld lord's organisation. Unknown to him, the organisation is actually a cult that sacrifices humans in exchange for wealth and beauty.Production
With the tagline: "They are here to get you back...", filming started in 2006. The production company was Media Pro, created in February 2005 and under Roger Mugisha, as the Managing Director.Cast
- Matthew Nabwiso as Ryan
- Mwita Athanas
- Mike Draman as Eric
- Joel Okuyo as Wycliffe
- Agnes Kebirungi
- Nancy Karanja
- Niyi Owolabi.
Soundtrack
The music score for Battle of the Souls was performed by Priscilla Kalibala, a Ugandan artist.Release
The film was released in cinemas on 29 April 2007 and it has run on local channels like NTV too. It's about 105 minutes long.Reception
The film came during a period when Ugandans were hearing so many stories about people going to the underworld ("under water") to get wealth and therefore had a compelling tale. Matt Bish started writing the movie in 2003 just after Roger Mugisha, leader of the Shadow's Angels, became born again (or "got saved"). He just read about Roger (then a Radio Presenter) in interviews and newspaper articles on the net. Matt is a GOD-fearing man. He was always hoping to have his first feature film and wanted it to have a Christian theme. And it was well-received winning numerous awards. "The film is talking about how people are drawn to the underworld to operate in the dark world, the evil world."Matt Bish (born 15 May 1975), also known as Matthew Bishanga, is a Ugandan filmmaker and the Creative Director at Bish Films. He directed the first Ugawood feature film, Battle of the Souls, in 2007. The first of four children born to Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Bishanga, Bish obtained his early education in Uganda. There, as a boy, he grew to love film, attending the cinema but also being exposed to many movies at home with his family on his father's home video system. He credits his parents with inspiring his film career. After his primary education, he attended Makerere University in Kampala, where he studied Architecture, before moving to the Netherlands in 1998 and studying Digital Filmmaking at the SAE Institute in Amsterdam. In 2005, Bish returned to Uganda to start an audiovisual production company "Bish Films Ltd" with his younger brother Roger Mugisha. At first limited to music videos, it soon branched out into films. Bish worked on his first feature film in 2006. Battle of the Souls is the first feature film in Uganda. Bish Films produces TV commercials and documentaries, as well as films and music videos as they did when they first began. He believes Ugandan films that try to maintain quality should not be categorised as kina-Uganda (like ki-Nigeria) but rather Nile Films, Ugawood or something else.
"A critic is someone who can't do what you do the way you do it..." - Matt Bish
