Plainsmen of Barotseland was filmed by Louis Nell who, as head of the Northern Rhodesian Government’s rural 16mm mobile cinema unit, had travelled extensively across the country showing films to African audiences. Nell had concluded that African audiences struggled to relate to the experiences of foreign characters and to a ‘war they did not understand’. He thus recognised the need for local productions, and when the government decided to make its own films in 16mm Kodachrome – ‘shown silent with an on-the-spot voiceover narration in the language of the district’ – it sent Nell to the Killarney Studios in Johannesburg for training (Mangin, 1998, 23). Nell initially began shooting recruitment films for the Vet and Police departments. The former, Chilumba’s Choice, was, Nell suggested, ‘virtually a “Western” in disguise, without any violence’, and relied heavily on the action to tell the story, while using local names to localise and popularise the film. The latter, a ‘crime doesn’t pay’ film entitled Keepers of the Peace, was again scripted by Nell and filmed in three days (Nell, 1998, 54). He also shot material on his travels for the 16mm newsreels Northern Rhodesia News (in black and white) and Northern Rhodesia Gazette (in colour). Started during the War, both were intended for African audiences and focussed on local ceremonial events.

Nell recalls the production of Plainsmen of Barotseland in his memoirs, Images of Yesteryear: Film-Making in Central Africa. He had visited Mongu before, but now returned to film the Kuomboka, the seasonal move back to the higher ground of Limulunga. ‘The Kuomboka was Barotseland’s event of the year and everyone of importance in the district would be there’, he explained. After arriving on a five-seater Rhodesia Airways De Havilland Rapide (its ‘weekly scheduled flight’), he travelled across the flooded plains ‘with the PC in his official barge’. Nell explained the traditions of the ceremony. The royal drums, the Maoma, relayed the order to move, and the Kuomboka then started with the Litunga’s (Chief’s) ministers going ahead of the Nalikwande (the royal barge) ‘to clear the way of evil spirits’. Nell was on friendly terms with the Litunga (Chief), Yeta III, ensuring that he was able to film on the royal barge. He recalled in particular the ‘resounding cheers and ululation’ that greeted Yeta, and the spontaneous dancing, singing and ‘joyous celebrations’ which he captured on film (Nell, 1998, 66-70).

The Colonial Film Unit edited and distributed the film, which Nell noted was ‘Northern Rhodesia’s first colour film to emerge with a sound track’. Colonial Cinema published the script and printed images from the film in June 1945, and then explained six months later that ‘as an experiment, the commentary has been dubbed in two African vernaculars’, while ‘a soundtrack has now been added, the music having been adapted by the musical director of the Unit from recordings made in Northern Rhodesia’ (Colonial Cinema, June 1945, 42-43, December 1945). The music came from a song recorded by the Ngoni Tumbuka choir, and Fela Sowande, the CFU’s musical director, based his score on a Bemba folksong. Nell further noted that ‘a few bars of the music were later adopted as the theme tune for the newsreel British News’ (Nell, 1998, 70).

During 1943 Northern Rhodesia had one mobile cinema, operated by a European and his African assistant, that played to 80,000 people throughout the territory. Two more were put into operation in 1945, with Africans now trained to operate them across the country. Nell noted the inclusion within the programme of CFU films, and the most prominent amongst these was, it appears, Plainsmen of Barotseland (Colonial Cinema, June 1948, 43-46). Nell noted, for example, the popularity of the film when he played it to those living along the banks of the Zambezi in 1947. ‘With time to announce shows sufficiently in advance, we now had good audiences and since they were quite at home with the subject, they particularly enjoyed the film Plainsmen of Barotseland. True to form, they gave a rousing royal salute when they saw their paramount chief on the screen’ (Nell, 1998, 92). The film also played, along with Keepers of the Peace, as part of an experiment in Mass Education, carried out by the cinema officer in Udi, in Nigeria, in 1948. The report noted that ‘though given without commentary, [the film] seemed to be grasped as a whole’, while the dancing ‘caused much comment and not a little amusement’ (Colonial Cinema, September 1948, 62). When Peter Morton-Williams conducted his experiments into audience reactions in Nigeria in 1952, he also included Plainsmen of Barotseland amongst his geographical films. The film played widely across Africa. For example, Colonial Office records in 1949 noted that it had been shown in Togoland during the previous year, while the film was also shown at the Ministry of Information theatre during the war as an example of the Unit’s work (Colonial Office, 1949, 109).