Silent Voices Uganda | Right Song Wrong Chord

Film Synopsis

A young, African woman in search of home, recognition and respect in the face of racial prejudice and the burgeoning promise of true love.

Vivian Nimaro, a Ugandan woman on the verge of returning home meets Chad Singer, a Caucasian American man who reminds her of what it's like to feel and be seen. But what does it mean to be seen by this man when all along Vivian has felt invisible?

Right Song, Wrong C(h)ord portrays key universal themes / issues such as the struggle for visibility, dignity and respect by a member of a minority group; the normalization of racism as evident in things labeled as ‘having fun’; the struggle to make connections and the inevitability of eventual disconnections in certain life realities; identity and the thirst to belong amidst fear of losing self; the passion that exudes when art and love meet; gains and losses and joys and pains in the search for meaningful connections.

Film Inspiration and Journey

In 2012, then already renowned Ugandan Playwright but Aspiring Filmmaker ADONG Lucy Judith, won the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to Graduate Film School at Temple University in Philadelphia. This was the unbelievable beginning of a dream Adong had nurtured since the age of 13 when she watched her first African film (Consequence 1987, Zimbabwe).

This would turn out to be the journey that shakes Adong to the core as she discovers for the first time that she is black. And that is both not a beautiful and a beautiful thing at the same time. Such is the paradox of the experiences that turns our worlds our humans.

In Right Song, Wrong C(h)ord, Adong shares a slice of the American dream through the eyes of a Ugandan woman as based only on a fraction of her experience in this bitter-sweet love story of a Ugandan woman and Caucasian American man.

Right Song, Wrong C(h)ord Movie 2016

PARTNERS

ADONG Lucy Judith

Director, Screenwriter & Producer

ALEXANDRA Schulsinger

Co-Producer

ROBERT Benjamin Jaffe

Co-Producer

Creative Team

Director, Screenwriter & Producer

ADONG Lucy Judith

An alumna of Sundance Theater Lab, Royal Court Theatre International Playwrights Residency and Renowned Hollywood Director, Mira Nair’s Maisha Film Lab currently living in her home country Uganda, ADONG is a Theater/Film Creative Director, Writer & Producer, who creates captivating plays and films that provoke and promote dialogue on social issues affecting underprivileged groups.

She is a 2015 graduate of Temple University MFA Film and Media Arts, under the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship 2012, where she also took classes in MFA Theatre Directing and Playwriting. She also taught classes in International Cinema and Screenwriting. She won the Margaret McNamara Memory Fund Education Grant USA/Canada 2014 and was voted among the WHO IS WHO in American Universities and Colleges 2015.

Adong also holds a B.A (Arts), Subjects-Luo Language, Literature and Drama and a Diploma in Music, Dance and Drama, both of Makerere University’s Department of Performing Arts and Film, where she currently Lectures courses in Creative Writing, Directing and Producing.

Right Song, Wrong C(h)or is Adong’s professional film directing debut. Adong debut her theatre directing in 2015 with Dwon Ma Peke (Silent Voices Acholi Production 2015, which toured Gulu, Kitgum, Lira and Kampala. She also directed the Refresher Rehearsals of the English Production of the same play as powerful directed by New York based Director, Dennis Hilton-Reid in 2012. Summer of 2016, she directed the powerful buzz-trailing production of “Ga-AD!” that ran at the Uganda National Theatre.

Play titles to her name includes: Silent Voices (Justice for War Crime Victims in Northern Uganda), Just Me, You and THE SILENCE (Gay Rights Struggle in Uganda), Ga-AD (Uganda’s Pentecostal Church Religious Politics), A Time to Celebrate (Child Sacrifice Practices in Uganda), Holy Maria (A 10mins play on Social Media Deception that featured at Zimbabwe International Arts Festival) and Blood ( Modern Day Adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs that featured at 48 Hours in Harlem, a 10mins play writing and production challenge within 48 hours hosted by the OBIE Award-Winning Harlem 9 and the National Black Theatre, New York.

Her plays have been presented in different theatres in New York, London, Toronto and Chicago and/or has been/is being studied at Princeton University, Dartmouth College, New York University and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hills, where she has also been invited as a Visiting Artist.

“… This is an important piece that deserves to be heard and we are pleased to be providing an opportunity for audiences to connect with its message”, Kevin Spacey, Oscar Award-Winning actor and Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theatre in London, on Adong’s play Just Me, You and THE SILENCE that he hosted to a 1, 000+ gala audience in November 2012.

Adong is also a Published Writer by MacMillan and Fountain Publishers and has worked as a Professional Acholi-English/English-Acholi Translator and Interpreter for many Organizations and Companies including the Commonwealth Secretariat Election Observers (2006), The International Criminal Courts and United Nations Children Education Funds (UNICF) among others.

Before going to Graduate Film School in the USA, Adong worked on a number of Film, Television and Radio Drama Projects in Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan, which includes among others: as Screenwriter, Lost Dreams (Land Mines Awareness Film by Great Lakes Film Production Ltd/Handicap International, Uganda, 2011), Creator and Writer, The Nurse Mildred Radio Drama (a 24-Episodes Radio Drama Series on Family Planning and HIV by John Hopkins University Health Department 2011), Staff Screenwriter, The Agency (M-NET Hour Long Original Television Drama Series Set in Nairobi, Kenya 2009) and Creator and Writer, River Yei Junction (a 13-Episdes Radio Drama Series on Democracy, Human Rights and the Rule of Law by Resource Centre for Civil Leadership in Yei, South Sudan 2008).

Co-Producers

ALEXANDRA Schulsinger

Alexandra has worked in production on Franny starring Richard Gere and Dakota Fanning. She has also worked in production on Sundowning written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Her film It Only Takes One won Best Short at Ridgewood Film Festival and Garden State Film while How I see the World was the Official Selection at Ridgewood Film Festival 2013 and It’s Your Turn won first place in the NJ Go Green Challenge in 2012.

Alexandra has also supplemented her experiences through completion of a Digital Filmmaking course offered by The New York Film Academy (2011) and part time production work on an NFL commercial (2014), as well as individual film projects over the last 4 years.

ROBERT Benjamin Jaffe

A Philadelphia based filmmaker; Robert Benjamin Jaffe holds a Bachelors in film, and is now in his first year as an MFA candidate at Temple University. He has trained his entire life in theater and videography, completing his first film, Timmy's Little Math Problem, at age 16.

Since joining Temple University, he has worked on many personal and professional projects, propelling his passion for independent film. In his satirical short, Wilt, he tells the story of an angry neo-liberal and his wife who just wants to have a nice day. Currently in post-production on Exit Ghost, Jaffe is now producing Adong Lucy Judith's film, Right Song, Wrong C(h)ord.