This is a story about a filmmaker in Uganda, 38 generous people and a camera that travelled hand to hand from Stockholm, via England, to get to him.
Meet Deo
In September 2024, Isak Friberg and I went to Uganda for a week to make a documentary about coffee with Lars Pilengrim of Lykke Coffee Farms. Before we left, a local filmmaker reached out online. He had heard about the project and wanted to be part of it.
That was Deo Kuset.
He joined us for the whole week. He filmed behind the scenes, helped us talk with people in the villages and fixed just about everything. We could never have made the film without him.
Somewhere along a very bumpy road, Deo told me how he got started. When his wife was expecting their first child, he went around his community with his camera, filming, until he had earned the 120 dollars for her to give birth at a good hospital. Their daughter is three now.
That's Deo. When something needs to happen, he makes it happen.
He wants to tell the stories of Uganda, its culture and the people changing things there, stories the rest of the world rarely gets to see. He has the eye and the drive for it. What he didn't have was the equipment. Filming equipment is hard to find and expensive in Uganda, so for a freelancer it's a long way to save up.
The fundraiser
When we left, we gave Deo the light panel and stand we had brought. Then, in early 2025, I set up a page on GoFundMe: Getting Deo a camera.
I made the page. Everyone else made it happen. A big part of the support came from Deo's own network, people who know what he's capable of. In the end, 38 people gave 20,306 SEK, and every one of them is credited in the film.
On April 1st I ordered a Sony A7 IV. Then more help came:
- Kamerastore donated a Sony 24-105 f/4 lens. Juho, the main character of my film about the Camera Rescue Project, brought it all the way from Finland to the premiere in Stockholm.
- Isak Friberg donated microphones.
Suddenly there was a complete, professional kit.
Getting it to Uganda
Sending a camera across continents means import duties, long shipping chains and a lot that can go wrong. So we did it the old-fashioned way: hand to hand, through people we trust.
Hannah runs Kickstart Coffee, where coffee profits build and run schools in Uganda, and Deo already works with them. She was travelling there in the summer with her son Reuben, but they live in Cambridge, UK.
So I asked Sam, who sits next to me at the co-working space and is British, if he was going to England anytime soon. He wasn't. But his husband Dan was, the next week.
Sam took the box home to Dan. Dan brought it to Manchester and mailed it to Hannah in Cambridge. Hannah and Reuben carried it the last 6,000 miles. At the end of July, Deo opened the box.
"It's not a cake, it's a camera," he explains to his kids in the film. I love that scene.
The ripples
Deo has been working like crazy ever since. He has filmed nonstop, taken on lots of client projects and even flown to Kenya for a job.
That's what I find so beautiful about this. It wasn't charity, it was a tool in the hands of someone who was already doing the work. A camera that matches his skills means better jobs, which means a stronger business and a better life for him and his family. And every story he tells about people making a difference in Uganda can inspire the next person. I can't tell those stories. Deo can, and he does.
Thank you to everyone who gave, carried, donated gear or shared the page. You did this.
Deo is a documentary filmmaker and fixer based in Uganda. Follow his work at deokuset.com, and if you need something filmed there, get in touch with him. He's your guy.
Behind the scenes
The story of our week in Uganda, and how filming there humbled me:
The coffee film we made together is No. 8 in 100 Documentaries: Every Bean Has a Home.