A project that began with a simple idea to deliver the magic of cinema to children in Africa has not only led to a cultural exchange but to an unlikely collaboration — the production of a music video by Japanese and Ugandan elementary school children.
Cinema Stars for Africa, a roaming theater project that travels mainly around northern Uganda, was launched in 2016 by photographer and writer Naoko Sakuragi to give some African children their first-ever taste of the silver screen.
An exchange of letters and video messages between students from a Tokyo elementary school, where Sakuragi periodically teaches about her activities in Africa, and Ugandan children ensued the same year. Sixth graders from the Tokyo school even put on a play portraying Ugandan child soldiers who had been abducted and forced to fight in the country's decades-long civil war.