Lack of funds killed Hilary Ng’weno's dream to boost film industry

The late Hilary Ng'weno [Courtesy]

The eight years that I worked for Hilary Ng’weno as a film producer/director was the turning point in my life.

Ng’weno drafted me from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's film production department, into his Stellagraphics Ltd. This was a video and film production company which he had set up a year or two before then, in his quest to expand his media platforms.

I was on my last two weeks of shooting of the 1986 feature film Kolormask, as the first Assistant Director to the late Sao Gamba, when I was ushered into Ng’weno’s office at Pioneer House for a one-on-one interview. This was a chance that I could not let pass. In the mid 1970’s, Ng’weno was a larger-than-life figure through his incisive paper, the Weekly Review. This was a paper that as high school students, we eagerly looked forward to reading, however old the copy. So, coming to join him was a culmination of the many years of admiration I had for his work.