Judith Lucy Adong

  • Judith Lucy Adong
Film director, Writer, Artistic director
Principal country concerned : Column : Theater, Cinema/tv, Literature

Judith Adong is a renowned Ugandan playwright and filmmaker currently finalizing her Fulbright Fellowship at Temple University in Philadelphia. Prior to her current study, she was a lecturer at Makerere University's Performing Arts and Film Department in Kampala, where she taught writing and film studies. Judith was a writer in residence with Sundance Institute, where she development "Silent Voices" and the Royal Court Theater, where she developed her play "Just Me, You and THE SILENCE. The play received a gala benefit reading in 2012 at the Old Vic Theatre in London, thanks to Kevin Spacey generous invite to Judy to share her play with an audience of over 1,000 Londoners. Her other plays include, "Ga-AD", the story of the negative influence of American evangelism and the manipulation of the congregation by it's leaders and "A Time To Celebrate", the story of a family torn apart by an act of child sacrifice for wealth. Judith's plays have also featured in New York at the National Black Theater, The Signature Theater, and The New Black Fest among others.
I n 2010, Adong was selected to the New York acclaimed Robert Redford founded Sundance Institute Theatre Programe, East Africa Lab with her play project, Silent Voices. The play Silent Voices, based on interviews with victims of the Northern Uganda conflict, raises some crucial discussion points about forgiveness versus justice as peace and conflict resolution approaches. In April 2011, she was invited by Sundance Institute Theatre Programm in collaboration with 651 Arts, an arts organisation that supports African stories for a follow up visit to New York City, where she attended a number of workshops and productions On and Off Broadway.
In the same year 2009, Adong was among 20 East African screenwriters selected for the M-Net East African Screenwriters Workshop aimed at increasing the creation and production of television drama series in East Africa. During this workshop, she created  television drama series, Seekers Unlimited based on the popular Uganda culture commonly known as "detoothing" and subsequently shot its pilot episode in 2010.
Adong has also done a number of community/social change radio which includes: the popular HIV/AIDS prevention Ugandan radio serial drama, Rock Point 256 (2005), the Southern Sudan Human Rights, Democracy, Good Governance and the Rule of Law serial, River Yei Junction (2007) and the 26 part Modern Family Planning awareness radio drama series commissioned by the Hopkins Communication Partners (HCP) The Nurse Mildred Drama (2011-2012).
 She is a published prose writer with Macmillan and Fountain Publishers with a number of children's storybooks in her Mother Tongue Acholi Language and an Acholi-English bilingual dictionary. Adong is intrigued by how low human beings can stoop and loves to write about the dark side of man in the hope of bringing about positive change.
Adong is also an alumni of the Maisha Film Lab, an  East Film Lab initiated by Mira Nira, the renowned Hollywood director of Salaam Bombay, Moonsoon Wedding among many other notable films. During the Maisha Film Lab of 2008, her script project was one of 3 out of 9 projects that were shot yielding a 15-minutes film, DownCast, which she directed. She written and directed a couple of NGO Films namely Dangerous Opinions commissioned by UNICEF and Together Fighting Hepatis E commissioned by International Rescue Committee produced by Great Lakes Films Productions Ltd.
Currently she is working on her theatre play project SILENT VOICES that will be staged and toured in Northern Uganda's Gulu, Kitgum and Lira before it gets to the National Theatre stage in two languages; Acoli and English, the first of its kind in Uganda!

Partners

  • Arterial network
  • Media, Sports and Entertainment Group (MSE)
  • Gens de la Caraïbe
  • Groupe 30 Afrique
  • Alliance Française VANUATU
  • PACIFIC ARTS ALLIANCE
  • FURTHER ARTS
  • Zimbabwe : Culture Fund Of Zimbabwe Trust
  • RDC : Groupe TACCEMS
  • Rwanda : Positive Production
  • Togo : Kadam Kadam
  • Niger : ONG Culture Art Humanité
  • Collectif 2004 Images
  • Africultures Burkina-Faso
  • Bénincultures / Editions Plurielles
  • Africiné
  • Afrilivres

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