When the trailer for Who Killed Captain Alex? went viral on YouTube, film-maker Isaac Nabwana’s mobile phone starting ringing with calls from around the world. One individual went further. After seeing 40 seconds of the promo for Uganda’s first action movie, American Alan Hofmanis gave up his life in Manhattan to move to Wakaliga, Kampala, to help Nabwana, aka IGG, develop Ramon film studio – and Wakaliwood was born.

• In Kaliti, a village about 20 miles from Kampala, Alan Hofmanis and Isaac Nabwana watch video rushes while waiting to shoot night scenes.
  

• Nabwana shoots a fight scene for The Ugandan Expendables with Ivan, a stuntman, Charles Bukenya, a member of Uganda’s national kung fu team, and Henry the Barbarian, a film regular.
  

• Nabwana shoots film regular Apollo for Operation Kakongoliro: The Ugandan Expendables.
  

The Ramon Film Studio has produced more than 40 movies. Who Killed Captain Alex was produced in 2010 for just $200, while 2016’s Operation Kakongoliro! The Ugandan Expendables cost $2,000, the studio’s biggest production budget to date.

• While Nabwana watches, in a jail built between two houses in his family compound, Ritah, the female hero in Who Killed Captain Alex?, rehearses the kung fu fight witht Kasekende Mustafa Katwalo, aka Mustafa Lee.

To attract more viewers and break new ground, Nabwana wanted a female lead for Who Killed Captain Alex?

• Wakaliwood actor Ronald Kazibwe, alias Sergi, chooses the guns that he will use in the next scene in a film in which he plays a villain.
  

Dozens of people work on Nabwana’s films, taking on all roles both in front and behind the camera: acting, doing stunts, designing props and costumes, technician duties and stage management. From the machinery to accessories and costumes, everything is homemade. Many of the actors live in the rehearsal rooms where costumes are kept.

• Actor Ronald Kazibwe, aka Sergi, drinks tea while Ronald Burya hesitates to wear a dirty T-shirt and Suudi Ryagoba irons some trousers during a compulsory rehearsal day.

• Charles Bukenya is a martial arts teacher, actor and stuntman, while Brenda Nantume, a hairdresser, holds her daughter after travelling 20 miles to be part of the shoot.
  

With little hope of pay for the moment, Wakaliwood members have side jobs. In a country where film piracy is common, Wakaliwood movies are mainly sold door-to-door and as quickly as possible, before pirated copies make it on to the market.

• Left: a group of hoodlums point their guns to the hero, off-camera. Right: the the ingenious props man Daouda Bisaso fixes on to a stuntman’s chest a plastic strip on which is glued, with mastic, the handle of a knife.
  

That a film studio is able to flourish in a place where cinema has little history may surprise some. Yet, Wakaliwood has emerged despite what from the outside may appear to insurmountable obstacles.

• In Wakaliga in front of the Nabwana family compound, a video for a song by dancehall and reggae artist Racheal M Natembo is being shot.

Wakaliwood is also lending credence to a Ugandan pop culture that some observers have linked to Quentin Tarantino for convenience. But it can only be understood by going beyond the violence that flows through the stories, the litres of food colouring that stains the fallen, and the archaic and mischievous special effects.

• An al-Shabaab villan dies in a whirlwind of blood in Once a Soldier as Nabwana films the scene.
  

For the bloody special effects, condoms are filled with food colouring and tied with a plastic ribbon around the chest of a stuntman. A metal ring is glued to the condom and fishing wire is attached to it, to be pulled by an assistant at the appropriate time. Cow blood was used in the past but some of crew members became ill after accidentally swallowing it.

In a Wakaliwood movie, there are always tens of gangsters, hoodlums or bad guys whose main job is to be killed by the good guys. To attain the high body count, the bad guys wear balaclavas, or caps, or beards. This allows crew members to play numerous baddies destined for a bloody end.

• The Waka Starz are Wakaliwood’s apprentices. Here they wait to take part in the video for Racheal M Natembo’s latest song. The singer ism Nabwana’s daughter.
  

The film-maker’s half-brother Robert Kizito discovered kung fu 30 years ago through Bruce Lee’s films. Mimicking them to his brother, Kizito was bitten by the martial arts bug while inspiring Nabwana towards a love for the films. He scoured central market of Kampala for Chinese martial arts magazines to dissect the positions from the diagrams inside their pages. A kung fu master, Kizito and his followers were filmed by his brother for Wakaliwood’s first ever action scenes.

• The Waka Starz are taught kung fu by Bukenya, who teacher is Kizito. Bukenya’s son is a member of the Waka Starz, third from right, so is Nabwana’s daughter, far right.
  

• Alan Hofmanis plays Jesus in a video for Ronald Buryahika, Wakaliwood actor and Christian music star.
  

Nabwana was child during the bloody rule of Idi Amin. The film-maker recalls the swollen corpses in a dumping ground near his home and the soldiers drumming at the doors of the houses, shouting: “Fungua mlango, panda gari” (“Open the door, get in the truck” in Swahili) .Mixing memory and his love Bruce Lee films, Nabwana has emerged as unique film-maker.

• On the set of the zombie movie Eaten Alive, a movie inspired by a cannibalism case that happened a few years ago in western Uganda.
  

• Alan Hofmanis plays a man who comes to Uganda to meet his in-laws but ends up being eaten by cannibals, and right: Daouda Bisaso plays a man whose wife is eaten alive.
  

Wakaliwood has captured the imagination of a nation, from the drivers of boda boda, (motorbike or bicycle taxi) to President Yoweri Museveni, who did not hesitate to incorporate support for the industry as a campaign promise during the 2016 presidential election.

• In the cinema hall he rents, a long shed with paperboard and wooden walls, Emmie, a VJ, offers live commentary in the local language Luganda to an audience watching a film.
  

A VJ adds extra colour to a movie with their jokes, gamut of expressions,tone, rhythm, the turn of phrase and extra dialogue. Emmie is part of the Wakaliwood family. He comments on every movie and his commentary is part of the movie. Nabwana said he cannot shoot a movie without considering Emmie’s commentary. Audiences pay 500 Ugandan shillings (20p) a ticket for a US blockbuster and 1,000 shillings (42p) for a Wakaliga movie.

• The comedians of Wakaliwood in costume during a promotional video shoot for social media.
  

I have been going to Wakaliwood for years, but I have not managed to unravel the mystery of Nabwana’s trajectory. It is the defiance of the impossible, like the life-size Bell Huey helicopter by the props crew in the yard of his family compound. Visitors describe him as a pop-culture prophet preaching from his slum the good word of cinema, communicating a certain idea of his country rather than basking the sun of international film festivals.

• Wakaliwood’s actors sing the anthem of Ramon Film Studio at the end of every day in the rehearsal room.

All photography by Frédéric Noy.