> Squibs used to simulate gunshot wounds were made from condoms filled with red food coloring and tied to fishing lines before being taped to the actors' chests; Nabwana previously used cow blood, but was forced to discontinue it after one of his actors developed brucellosis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_Captain_Alex

On the more lighter side of things:

> Throughout the film, a panpipes cover of the Seal song "Kiss from a Rose", as well as a piano cover of the ABBA song "Mamma Mia", can be heard.

The commentary is the best part. Everybody in Uganda knows Kung-Fu!

Is this the movie with the awesome helicopter scene?

> I'm really surprised silent movies/tv isn't more common.

Interesting comment.

I gave it some thought. One place you can see the dynamics and opportunity for a language agnostic entertainment like you describe is YouTube or TikTok. There are plenty of videos across all kinds of categories that are language free or nearly so.

Many cartoons for kids don't use language much. Eg have a look at Tom and Jerry. But the same applies to much modern fare, too.

Because a language barrier isn’t the only barrier and it isn’t even that important of a barrier for mass media: dubbing is cheap.

Yes, people all around the world know Mr Bean, but they know it as something British and foreign. Look at how many British shows get adapted for the American audience despite almost complete absence of a language barrier.

The last point is more controversial and political. But a common language for places like Papua New Guinea is probably far more important than trying to adapt everything for every tiny linguistic community. Even people who speak very common languages of advanced economies such as German or French are at great disadvantage if they don’t know English. It is very unlikely that someone is going to translate a graduate textbook into Ipili, or share a post how they got into YC in that language, or even share a video on YouTube how they fixed their pipe at home.

Making good 'visual storytelling' films requires some real talent, a deep understanding of the strengths of the film as a medium, and a lot of resources. In comparison, a 'talking heads' movie can be made with a few actors sitting in a single room without much regard for cinematography (hell, event a single actor sitting in a car may suffice, like in "Locke"). That's why there has been so few great 'visual storytellers' like Keaton and Chaplin.

Silent comedies hold up exceptionally well. I’ve enjoyed nearly everything of Keaton’s and Chaplin’s I’ve watched, which is quite a bit. Haven’t dug into Lloyd yet, but I’m expecting that to go well, too.

Dramas are more hit-or-miss and benefit more from some effort at acclimatization, I think—that is, I think the average viewer is likely to bounce off even the very-good ones without putting some time & work into getting used to the medium.

Our local theater - which held the West-coast premier of Gone with the Wind - renovated their organ and showed The General with live accompaniment as the first event. Was fantastic.