The Uganda Project explores the British Empire's secret 1904 expedition to assess Uganda as a potential national home for the Jewish people. Blending fiction and nonfiction, essayistic form and re-enactments, the film engages with the entwined histories of cinema and colonialism and their shared fixation on soil, land, and territory. A French-British co-production, it is slated to begin filming later this year.
Dr Daniel Mann, Lecturer in Film Studies, filmmaker
14 January 2025
Dr Daniel Mann's new film selected for Rotterdam's CineMart 2025
The Uganda Project, a new film by Dr Daniel Mann, has been chosen to participate in CineMart 2025 film lab at the Rotterdam Film Festival, starting 30 January.
Dr Daniel Mann’s The Uganda Project is among the 20 films selected for the 42nd edition of CineMart – International Film Festival Rotterdam’s lab where projects in development are presented to international industry for financing and co-production.
Each year, CineMart offers filmmakers and producers ‘the opportunity to launch their ideas to the international film industry and to find the right connections to bring their projects to reality’. The 2025 lineup is thematically diverse and features projects from Africa, Asia, Europe, as well as North, Central and South America.
‘From stories of war and anti-colonial struggle, to bold queer voices and strong female characters; and from the origins of authoritarian regimes to their dystopian futures, folk horror to stop motion animation, romantic musical comedy and Afro-noir mystery – this selection is remarkable in its range of storytelling,’ the CineMart statement says.
Films from the CineMart selection will also compete for the IFFR Pro Awards.
The 2025 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) runs from 30 January to 9 February.
Dr Daniel Mann is a Lecturer in Film Studies at King’s. His work in writing and filmmaking examines the infrastructures underlying audio-visual media in the context of colonialism, armed conflict, and climate emergency. He is the author of Occupying Habits: Media as Warfare in Israel-Palestine (Bloomsbury, 2023).
Daniel Mann’s feature films have been exhibited internationally at film festivals and venues such as the Berlinale, the Rotterdam Film Festival, Cinema du Reel, the Hong Kong Film Festival, Visions du Réel, and the ICA in London. His film Under a Blue Sun premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival’s Tiger Competition, Centre Pompidou, the ICA, and received the Best International Film award at Documenta Madrid 2024.
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Lecturer in Film Studies