Lukman Ali

EARLY LIFE

Loukman Ali was born on 1 June 1990 in the Kibuli neighbourhood of Kampala, Uganda. His father has origins in the Comoros. Afflicted with dyslexia, he struggled academically from a young age but excelled at drawing. In his early teens he taught himself Photoshop and 3D animation, then progressed to shooting and editing with a camera. At age 16 he won a competition and began creating cartoons for the Ugandan English-language daily New Vision. After secondary school he briefly attended Makerere University before dropping out to focus on a full-time creative career. He worked at a recording studio and various creative agencies in roles that included video producer, motion graphics artist, and creative art director. These experiences, particularly graphic design and commercial work, shaped his later approach to visual storytelling and cinematography.

CAREER

Ali shot his first short film, Monday (2013), while living in Norway. His next short, the comedy The Bad Mexican (2017), was filmed in Uganda and screened at festivals including the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF) and Amakula International Film Festival. His breakthrough came with his debut feature, the crime thriller The Girl in the Yellow Jumper (completed 2020, released 2021). Delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it premiered at New York’s UrbanWorld Film Festival and became the first Ugandan film released on Netflix (December 2021). It won Best African Film (or Best Movie East Africa) at the 2022 Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA) and Best Director at the 2021 Realtime International Film Festival. In 2021 he also released the shorts The Blind Date and Sixteen Rounds (both starring frequent collaborator Michael Wawuyo Jr. and co-produced with Usama Mukwaya). Sixteen Rounds won Best African Short Film at the Durban International Film Festival in 2022. In 2022 he directed and served as cinematographer on the Nigerian crime thriller Brotherhood (produced by Jade Osiberu). At the 2023 AMVCAs the film won Best West African Film, and Ali received Best Director and Best Cinematographer awards. Further credits include the martial-arts short Ubuntu Uppercut (2023) and Katera of the Punishment Island (2023), an episode of the Netflix/UNESCO anthology African Folktales, Reimagined, based on the historical Ugandan practice of banishing pregnant unmarried girls to Akampene (Punishment Island). He has continued developing new projects, including work with French production companies and upcoming features such as Cakewalk and others.

Loukman Ali is widely regarded as one of the leading figures in contemporary Ugandan and East African cinema. He is noted for his strong visual style, genre storytelling, and ability to bring Ugandan stories to international platforms such as Netflix. He frequently collaborates with actor Michael Wawuyo Jr. and continues to work across directing, cinematography, writing, and design while advocating for stronger industry structures, including copyright enforcement and formal training in Uganda.