Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait (General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait). 1974. France/Switzerland. Directed by Barbet Schroeder. In English, Swahili, French; English subtitles. 90 min.
This landmark film is all the more chilling for its gallows humor. Barbet Schroeder found in General Idi Amin Dada, the homicidal Ugandan dictator then at the height of his powers, an all-too-eager subject. “Schroeder's most famous film is a cold-eyed, unflinching record of a living hell, psychopathology from the inside—and probably one of the few documentaries made recently in which censorship was exercised under threat of death and torture” (Michael Wilmington).
Digital preservation courtesy Janus Films