By Ben Musanje
The Uganda Communications Commission hosted celebrated American-Ugandan actor and filmmaker Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine as he returned home with a deeply personal documentary tracing the life and legacy of a little-known rural photographer whose images quietly preserved decades of community history in southern Uganda.
The film, Memories of Love Returned, brings to the screen the extraordinary story of Aloysius Ssalongo Kibaate, a village photographer whose work spanned more than half a century, documenting everyday life across the Greater Masaka region from the late 1950s until his death in 2006. Through tens of thousands of negatives carefully preserved over decades, Kibaate unknowingly built one of the most intimate visual archives of rural Ugandan life.
The project, which has taken more than two decades to materialize, began with a chance roadside encounter that would eventually grow into a long and emotional journey of discovery.
On April 24, 2002, Mwine’s car broke down in the small town of Mbiriizi in Lwengo District. As he waited for repairs, he encountered a man passing by on a bicycle carrying a camera. The man stopped to check on the stranded motorist. The brief exchange revealed an unlikely connection: both men were photographers. The cyclist was Kibaate, a local photographer who had quietly chronicled life in the region for decades.
That encounter marked the beginning of a friendship and collaboration that would last until Kibaate’s death and beyond.
Mwine, who built an international career in Hollywood but has consistently returned to Uganda to work on local stories, became fascinated by the scale and dedication behind Kibaate’s photography. Over time, he discovered that the modest rural photographer had accumulated tens of thousands of film negatives stored under fragile conditions. The images captured weddings, family portraits, community gatherings, celebrations and moments of everyday life across generations.
Concerned that the archive might be lost, Mwine took responsibility for preserving the photographs. The negatives were eventually transported to the United States where they were digitized to ensure the preservation of decades of visual history.
What began as an effort to safeguard photographs gradually evolved into a much larger project aimed at honoring Kibaate’s life and work.
In 2021, Mwine organized an exhibition in Mbiriizi where the restored photographs were displayed publicly for the first time. The event became an emotional reunion between people and memories they had long thought lost. Many residents arrived hoping to catch a glimpse of relatives whose images had disappeared over the years. Some discovered photographs of their parents taken decades earlier, while others saw family portraits from weddings in the 1970s that had vanished from their homes.
Among the most striking moments was when a man finally saw the youthful face of his father for the first time. The man was the son of former first Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lwengo constituency Martin Onesmus Muguzi Lubyayi, who died when the boy was only a month old. All the photographs that survived in the family depicted Lubyayi as an elderly man. The exhibition revealed a portrait from his youth, allowing the son to finally see what his father looked like during his younger years.
For many residents, the exhibition felt like opening a lost chapter of their personal histories. Tears, laughter and disbelief filled the exhibition space as families rediscovered images that had quietly survived for decades in Kibaate’s archive.
The emotional impact extended beyond photographs.
As Mwine continued researching Kibaate’s life, another unexpected story emerged. During an interview recorded in 2003, Kibaate openly recounted details of his personal life, including the many children he had fathered across different households. For years, his immediate family believed he had three wives and 28 children. But the interview revealed a far more complex reality: Kibaate had fathered 47 children and had relationships with 12 women.
When the revelations surfaced through the documentary, they triggered intense reactions among families and communities. Some people who had grown up believing they belonged to one lineage discovered that Kibaate was their biological father. In several cases, men in their forties only learned the truth after watching the film.
The discoveries stirred a mixture of shock, anger, relief and reconciliation. Some individuals struggled with the new information, while others embraced the chance to finally understand their origins.
Beyond the personal revelations, the film paints a vivid portrait of a photographer who worked largely for the love of his craft rather than financial reward. In the decades when cameras were rare and photographers held a special status at community events, Kibaate became a familiar presence at weddings, celebrations and gatherings. Villagers often treated him as a guest of honor, sometimes offering meals and hospitality in appreciation for his work.
His modest studio, built in 1964 with help from members of his family, became a central hub where generations came to record milestones in their lives.
For Mwine, the story of Kibaate represents more than a biography. It is a reflection of how ordinary individuals can unknowingly preserve history and shape the collective memory of communities.
The documentary has taken more than twenty years to produce, with filmmakers returning repeatedly to the community to record interviews, recover images and document the unfolding impact of the archive. According to Producer Bashir Ssenjiri, from the production team, the project has required extensive resources over the years, with recent production costs alone running into hundreds of millions of shillings.
The premiere screenings in Kampala have already drawn strong interest from audiences eager to see the story unfold on the big screen.
The film is being screened at cinemas in the capital as part of its launch, with ticket demand quickly filling early showings.
At the launch event hosted by the Uganda Communications Commission, Acting Executive Director Fred Otunnu described Mwine’s return to Uganda to tell local stories as a powerful example for the country’s creative industry.
The commission says supporting local filmmakers remains a key priority as part of its broader mandate to strengthen Uganda’s creative sector. Through initiatives such as the Content Development Support Programme and the annual Uganda Film Festival, the regulator has supported thousands of creatives nationwide with funding, training and industry exposure.
Officials say Uganda’s film industry represents more than entertainment, arguing that storytelling can play a major role in projecting cultural identity, generating employment and strengthening national pride.
For Mwine, the documentary is both a tribute and a fulfilled promise. When he first met Kibaate in 2002 and visited his home, he had suggested that the photographer’s life deserved to be documented in a book. Kibaate, unfamiliar with the idea of publishing his story, never pursued it.
Years later, Mwine completed that promise in a different form, bringing the story to life on screen and returning the photographs, and the memories they carry, to the community that created them. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
