Bobi Wine: The People’s President (12A)
Directed by Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp

 
THIS gripping and frankly shocking documentary chronicles how one of Uganda’s most successful popstars turned activist Bobi Wine became a politician and embarked on ending at the ballot box President Yoweri Museveni’s oppressive 35-year regime.

Shot over the course of five years, the film follows Wine and his wife Barbie. As he became opposition leader, they both risked their lives as well as that of their children to stop the president, who came to power in 1986, from winning a sixth term in office.

The documentary shows how Museveni changed the country’s constitution in order to be able to run for the 2021 presidential elections, and the violence used to threaten and stop anyone who opposed him. 

It features frank interviews with Wine and Barbie interwoven with fly-on-the-wall footage and Wine’s defiant music denouncing the dictatorial regime, all part of the singer’s mission to defend the oppressed and the voiceless people in Uganda. 

Co-directors Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp’s debut film is a powerful and awe-inspiring portrait of a charismatic singer-turned-politician determined to make a difference and fight for his constituents’ rights to democratic freedom.  

Images of the police and the military savagely beating up peaceful demonstrators and spraying pepper spray in their eyes is just horrific. 

There is also footage of Wine, during a Zoom interview, being violently hauled out of a car by the authorities. He was so severely beaten up in custody that he was hospitalised. 

While on the campaign trail 140 members of Wine’s team were abducted. In a heartbreaking scene Wine sits his four young children down and informs them that they are going to the US to stay with their aunt for their safety while he and their mother continue campaigning. 

On the eve of the election the internet is suddenly shut down and Wine and his wife are held under siege as their compound and home are surrounded by the police and the military. 

The film shows how Western governments have taken no action against Museveni’s violent bully-boy and undemocratic tactics and are complicit in maintaining a dictatorship in Uganda. 

What shines through is Wine’s bravery and his unrelenting commitment to fight for Ugandan democracy despite what he has endured. Many of our own politicians could learn from him.  

Out in cinemas today.