Swiss duo Basile Koechlin and Jules Louis Koechlin have produced a film as visually stunning and aurally engaging as the region it portrays. Buganda, the largest of Uganda's kingdoms in recent memory, has been well researched by outsiders since the mid-nineteenth century, when Europeans first encountered thriving, culturally, and politically sophisticated palace life near the source of the world's longest river. Despite robust scholarly interest in Buganda, widely available audiovisual materials about its royal music remain scarce. This film, and its companion audio release, offer a strong new contribution to our understanding of Buganda, its people, and the saga of royalist sentiment that complicates Uganda's present national political narrative.With the support of their Ugandan colleague, Michael Mutagubya, the Koechlin brothers locate an impressive number of culture bearers (mostly elders) who persist in maintaining Buganda's royal music tradition. Once assembled, this group converses on camera about the historic role of royal musicians. Through well-composed shots of Baganda musicians, the bucolic landscape, and abodes both urban and rural, the film tells the story of the various musical groups associated with the Kabaka—Buganda's king—since the desecration of the palace in 1966. It is a painful tale, told from the perspective of musicians who continue to preserve their songs and traditions despite numerous challenges. Aware of the consequences for being too direct in political critique, the musicians skirt the political marginalization of Buganda and instead sustain their focus on struggles of transmitting their skills and repertories to succeeding generations. “I suffer to play the flute alone,” says Mwami Ssewanyana, the grandson of palace musician Bukko Ssempiira. Absent the context of palace performances, he and others maintain their knowledge of Kiganda royal music as best they can, but this is not music for individual performance. As the film shows through various rehearsals for a massive gathering to perform for the Kabaka, historically it was the interaction among musicians from all over Uganda that shaped such a special aesthetic in the lubiri, or royal enclosure.One powerful story line in the film follows Mwami Solesiti Richard Ssewanyana as he carries his flute to his local village bar in Ndese. After the death of his only student, he remains eager to make this music more publicly known and to pass this tradition to future generations. What follows is emblematic of the current state of Buganda's royalist consciousness. When he performs, the other patrons ridicule him. “This man is sick,” they say before asking him why he plays flute in a bar. Ssewanyana responds with fire, even insulting their choice of beverage, and finishes his rebuttal in the manner of kulanya, a formal self-introduction for honored guests modeled on that which people use before the Kabaka. He riffs on the traditional “I am a man of the king,” asserting, “I was a musician of the king, Sir Eward Muteesa, father of [the current] Kabaka, Ronald Muwenda Mutebi.” The barflies, still cheeky, demand a song. Ssewanyana's response is no arbitrary choice. He plays an old song called “Gganga Alula” from the royal enclosure. A well-executed rack focus that conjures the dank feel of the dark, boozy enclosure then shows a mocking rendition of the Buganda anthem. Its drunken singer gets off to a bad start, singing “Uganda” instead of “Buganda.” Ssewanyana corrects him sharply, and the elder's countenance gives the impression that although soldiers sacked the palace in 1966, the kingdom's surrender is ultimately a failure to maintain its traditions. It is a stark reminder that revival demands devotion not only from performers but also listeners.The subsequent scenes artfully suggest that there might still be a critical mass of musicians capable of reviving the cultural and instrumental diversity of Buganda's royal music. Among these, highlights include assemblies of the balere (royal flutists), the bakondere (royal trumpeters), and, at Kaboowa town, the bagoma (royal drummers), featuring Livingstone Musisi Mukalazi and the distinctive ntenga drums. The opportunity to see living musicians play these instruments is truly rare. Considered together with the rich extant scholarship on these ensembles, the Koechlins’ suggestion of revival seems more plausible. Footage of an argument about performance practice among the makondere aerophone ensemble offers clarity on the paradox of tradition: it demands care and attention for sustainability, even as it constantly adapts and changes to survive. Thankfully, this is translated for viewers. Another sequence, featuring a discussion between the balere (flutists) and officials from the palace, offers a representative cross section of the various ages, professional interests, religious diversity, and rich depth of musical and cultural expertise that has long been characteristic of Buganda's royal enclosure.This documentary incorporates archival recordings from the Hugh Tracey and Klaus Wachsmann collections, also reissued on the companion audio release. These are most effectively featured behind B-roll of musicians en route to perform for the Kabaka himself. The audiovisual portrayal of this raucous public affair brings viewers into the musical and political sophistication that have long informed Kiganda royalist identity. Historically, it was precisely the performance of these songs, their linked instrumental traditions, and the stories they index that produced sociocultural cohesion for the kingdom far beyond the immediate vicinity of the palace. The waning evening light on a conversation about intergenerational transmission captures the current state of these traditions. The scenes of enculturation and studio recording that follow offer perhaps the film's most optimistic vision of revivalist possibility.The Koechlins miss a few opportunities. Some will only occur to viewers familiar with Kiganda culture, but others will frustrate anyone not fluent in Luganda. In the Ndese bar, Mzee Ssewanyana translates “Gganga Alula” only partially, so the scene neglects the deeper social history of that song. As the film proceeds, however, the shortcomings in translation grow more and more prominent. The heir of a renowned musician in the Kabaka's court, Bisaso Ssempeke, speaks both English and Luganda fluently. Why then do shots of his beautiful ndongo and nnnga playing lack subtitles for his equally excellent singing? Translating song requires a different effort than translating speech, of course, but both Bisaso and Mutagubya could have helped. They also could have worked with the Koechlins to subtitle the other important archival recordings used throughout the film.This critique should not discourage viewers from seeing this film and incorporating it into courses. We have only rarely heard widely released recordings of Kiganda royal instruments at this level of quality since mid-twentieth-century recordings of Kiganda music by Hugh Tracey, Klaus Wachsmann, and later Peter Cooke. Buganda Royal Music Revival raises important questions about the continuing cultural and political relevance of the kingdom, and these grow more urgent for historic preservationists and scholars who want to consult the keepers of Buganda's royal traditions while they live, sing, and play their instruments. The Koechlins, Mutagubya, and the aging cultural authorities featured in Buganda Royal Music Revival offer a beautiful entry point for that work.