Photography is known for its power to capture a singular moment in one frame.

But collectively, and as time passes, photographs can take on much more meaning.

Filmmaker Intari Gumma Embahoehme, used a chance encounter with a photographer in a small Ugandan village

to bring to life the everyday stories of its residents.

His film, Memories of Love Returned, premiered today at the New York African Film Festival.

And he spoke with Ali Rogan as part of our arts and culture series Canvas.

Thank you so much for being here.

This journey began all the way back in 2002 when you met Mr. Chibate Aloysius Salongo.

What drew you to him and to his work?

Chibate Aloysius Salongo is a rural photographer from Embedizzi, Uganda, whose work had

spanned over five decades, documenting thousands and thousands of people's lives.

And by chance, I stumbled upon his studio when my car broke down in his hometown and from Beid Easy.

And I felt like I struck a gold mine.

Tell me about what it was like seeing those images for the first time

and realizing what a treasure trove you had stumbled upon.

It was like looking back in time, really, and not just looking back in time in broad sense, but looking back in time in terms of love and memories of love that have been captured on film.

Lovers, couples on their wedding day, graduations, thousands upon thousands of

people celebrating these precious moments in their life, all captured by him for a five-decade

period. Were you surprised by the depth and the variety of responses, these images, conjured up in

people? If you could imagine now, we carry so many phones, photos on our phones, and imagine if the thousands

of people that you know lost their phones for 50 years.

So family secrets, relationships, things that sort of been kept in the shadows were all of a sudden

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