When the Central African Film Unit began film production in September 1948, its first film was a two-reel comedy produced by Louis Nell, entitled Mulenga Goes to Town. Although CAFU would focus predominantly on more informative and instructional films, the creation of Mulenga responded to the oft-quoted liking amongst African audiences for Charlie Chaplin. Mulenga was a ‘born buffoon’, while the film relied on slapstick humour and, as Colonial Cinema noted, ‘visual storytelling’ as ‘the film contains no captions and none is needed’ (Nell, 1998, 104).

Film historian James Burns noted how some audience members complained of the ‘unrealistic and unflattering behaviour of Africans’, objecting to the title character’s clownish behaviour (Burns, 2002, 118). The film, both thematically and stylistically, closely followed the now established conventions for African audiences, outlined by William Sellers, the head of the Colonial Film Unit. Filmmaker Louis Nell noted that the theme of Mulenga Goes to Town – ‘The raw villager who goes to town and comes to grief’ – was widely used, ‘either to enlighten newcomers visiting towns or to discourage them from going’ (Nell, 1998, 104). Mulenga Gets a Job also works within a clear moral framework and, in its editing and shot-repetition, caters for the perceived requirements of African audiences. Burns noted that on viewing the first Mulenga title, white audiences ‘assumed that the plodding pace and simple techniques were appropriate for African audiences’ (Burns, 2002, 119).

The CAFU films were, for the most part, silent. While this encouraged ‘visual storytelling’, they were usually accompanied by a commentary spoken in the appropriate vernacular. This was often fraught with problems, as the scripts were poorly translated, or commentators, with no script to work from, found themselves making up their own story (Burns, 2002, 109-111). Geoffrey Mangin, a member of the CAFU, noted that the commentary was often performed by Gideon Naminesuh, a veteran among the Unit’s African staff, who would deliver it in different dialects at each mobile cinema screening (Mangin, 1998, 25).

The success and popularity of Mulenga Goes to Town led to further productions in the series, including Mulenga Wins a Bride, Mulenga’s Unlucky Day and Mulenga Gets a Job. Mulenga Gets a Job was directed by Stephen Peet, who as director–cameraman headed a field unit working from Salisbury (Louis Nell was in charge of the other unit, based at Lusaka). Peet was a Quaker and specialised in films showing ‘social uplift’. While Peet was, Burns acknowledges, a ‘more progressive and thoughtful colonial civil servant than most’, his ‘work embraced the same themes as those of his colleagues, and all championed the colonial hierarchy’ (Burns, 2002, 71, 73). Peet worked for CAFU for six years, and would later become an acclaimed maker of BBC television documentaries, particularly associated with the long-running oral history series Yesterday’s Witness.