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The Last King of Scotland
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The Last King of Scotland
IDFA 2013

The Last King of Scotland

Kevin Macdonald
England, United States, Germany
2006
121 min
n.a.
Festival history
When General Idi Amin took power in a coup, Uganda rejoiced, but the cheers were quickly stifled by the torture and execution of anyone who dared oppose him. And he had a lot of opponents, as we see in the fiction film , which shows events in Uganda through the eyes of a young Scottish doctor named Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy). At first, he enjoys the favor of the dictator (a terrifying but charismatic Forest Whitaker), who served in the British army and admired the rebellious, independent spirit of the Scots. But as the film progresses, Amin is increasingly revealed to be a capricious tyrant: he makes enemies all over the place and becomes ever more paranoid and unpredictable. Unlike in the documentary portrait , here we see the events that finally led to the Ugandan leader becoming an international political pariah – something he sought to avoid at any cost. A number of scenes from the documentary are also included in this film, such as the swimming competition. In the fiction film, Amin gets a head start from the fearful competitors, while in real life, the competition began fairly and the dictator came in first through sheer force. This captures the relationship between the leader and the rest of his country more clearly than any acted scene could.
Credits
Distribution for the Netherlands
    20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
    20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Screening copy
    20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
    20th Century Fox Home Entertainment