Science fiction has always fascinated me, and growing up I loved to read Tolkien and Tutuola. I was even more thrilled by oral tales about creatures I couldn’t find in books, but which lived just around the corner of my street. Today, I tend to retell those oral tales, often talking about African cultures and how we interpret science and technology. Some call it Africanfuturism, but to me its all about imagining what our societies would have looked like had colonialism not interrupted the natural development of our knowledge systems.

Yat Madit (Big Tree), is set in the near future, and is all about my frustrations from living in a bloody dictatorship. Before colonialism, forms of democracy with no central governments thrived in many African nations, including Acholi where this story is set. It’s not far fetched to imagine a future where technology based on decentralized social media replaces central governments, since social media has driven political movements like the Arab Spring and #EndSARS. And, as democracy retreats around the world, stories like this become important, and urgent.

In this film, a young woman, Anena, invents the technology to make direct democracy possible. Most of the lead characters in my films are women. This, perhaps, is because I have a disability, and so as a child I spent a lot of time at home with girls and women, rather than wander the streets with other boys. Does this make me think about female characters a lot? Well, Anena faces a representative of current bad African leadership, those who keep dictators in power for selfish reasons, a bio technologist eager to fund his start-up pharmaceutical. He comes up with a genetically engineered butterfly to act like riot police by spreading a mind-control disease. Today, with Western corporations and governments eager to test-release genetically modified mosquitoes in Uganda, allegedly to fight malaria, this film is a cautionary tale.

I’ve made a lot of short sci-fi films to teach myself how to use CGI to achieve photo-real visual effects, and this experience will come in handy when making this film. On addition, I’ll use practical effects to transform rural Uganda into a cyberpunk world. But I hope for more than just a sci-fi thriller. I want a film that appeals to all kinds of audiences, though I see young adult women under thirty-five enjoying this film a lot. With twelve years experience in filmmaking, and having built a film studio in Kampala, I’m confident of delivering a film that will do well in the global market, like other Afrofuturist films with a strong female lead, including “I Am Not A Witch”, “Neptune Frost,” and “Atlantics.”

I see Yat Madit premièr at an A-list festival, like Berlinale, and thriving in genre festivals, like SXSW, and in science fiction and fantasy conventions, like WorldCon. And while I expect it to have a good theatrical run, it will make its money from networks and streaming platforms.