DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 23 -- I HAVE now listened to a conversation on the NO TROLLING podcast, hosted by Sean81jax and featuring filmmaker Ernest Napoleon, three times.

Three times, ndugu zangu. By the third round, I felt the interviewer deserved a glass of water, and the Tanzanian film fraternity needed somewhere comfortable to sit before receiving its diagnosis.

For those meeting Ernest for the first time, a little introduction is in order. He is a Russian-Tanzanian producer, screenwriter and actor, born in Moscow to a Tanzanian father and a Russian mother.

His family moved to Tanzania when he was five, and he grew up in Dar es Salaam before moving to Los Angeles as a teenager.

There, he earned a degree in computer science while spendi...