Cinema
Rise and Fall of Idi Amin
Sharad Patel · 1981
Synopsis
The film follows Idi Amin Dada, played by Joseph Olita, from the military coup that gives him power in Uganda in 1971. The country's new master has opponents and supposed traitors shot, presses foreign governments to supply him with arms and money, expels the Asians and plays the concertina before diplomats. The British journalist Denis Hills, arrested and sentenced for a book in which he spoke of the dictator, plays himself; the story passes through the Israeli raid on Entebbe and the war with Tanzania.
Context
Co-produced by Kenya, Nigeria and the United Kingdom, from a screenplay by Wade Huie, with photography by Harvey Harrison and music by Christopher Gunning, the film runs for one hundred and one minutes. Its voices were largely dubbed for the international release, and it appeared in the United States under the title Amin: The Rise and Fall. Vincent Canby, in the New York Times, judged it fairly faithful to the facts and dates despite its exploitation-film label; Roger Ebert saw in it only a notebook of anecdotes with no overall point. Joseph Olita took up the role of Amin again ten years later for Mira Nair.
Who it is for
For those interested in how East African cinema portrayed, in the heat of the moment, the terror of the Ugandan regime.
Prizes and reception
The Kenyan press regards it as a worldwide success, and Joseph Olita won an acting prize for it at an American festival.
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