Oscar-Shortlisted ‘Bobi Wine: The People’s President’ To Return To Select Cinemas for MLK Weekend: “Perfect Opportunity” To Highlight Wine’s “Inspiring Fight For Freedom”

Matthew Carey
·3 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: National Geographic Documentary Films is returning its Oscar-shortlisted documentary Bobi Wine: The People’s President to select cinemas over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

The film directed by Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp will play at IFC Center in New York, the Laemmle Monica Film Center in Santa Monica, CA, and San Francisco’s Presidio Theatre from Friday through Sunday, overlapping with part of the nomination voting period for the 96th Academy Awards. On Tuesday, Bwayo and Sharp earned DGA Awards nominations for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary for their film, which centers on Ugandan pop star Bobi Wine, who dared to run for president against his country’s dictator, Gen. Yoweri Museveni.

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'Bobi Wine: The People's President'
‘Bobi Wine: The People’s President’

Bobi Wine: The People’s President recently won the IDA Documentary Award for Best Documentary Feature and has earned top prizes at the Hamptons International Film Festival and Independent Film Festival of Boston. It is nominated for three awards at this Friday’s Cinema Eye Honors in New York. Wine has also been named to the Cinema Eye Honors’ Unforgettables list of the year’s most remarkable figures in documentary film.

“Born in the slums of Kampala, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, famously known as Bobi Wine, is a musician turned politician who is the current leader of the National Unity Platform (NUP) and the People Power Movement,” notes a release about the film. “He has campaigned for hospital sanitization, malaria prevention, refugees’ rights and children’s education. His songs are known as peaceful protests and edutainment (a mix between education and entertainment), focusing on the struggles of Uganda’s underprivileged and low-income earners and calling upon young people to join politics and change their country’s destiny.”

At great risk to his life, Wine has opposed Gen. Museveni, ruler of Uganda since the 1980s. Museveni and his son, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, face potential charges from the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity.

‘Bobi Wine: The People’s President’
Bobi Wine

“Bobi Wine is a courageous African leader committed to bringing democracy and equality to the people of Uganda,” said Carolyn Bernstein, EVP of Scripted and Documentary Films for National Geographic. “A rerelease of Bobi Wine: The People’s President over the holiday weekend is the perfect opportunity to honor his heroism. We are dedicated to sharing this film with the widest audience possible in order to urgently highlight Bobi’s inspiring fight for freedom.”

(L-R) John Battsek, Bobi Wine, Barbie Kyagulanyi (Bobi's wife), and Moses Bwayo attend the Motion Picture Academy's 14th Annual Governors Awards.
(L-R) John Battsek, Bobi Wine, Barbie Kyagulanyi (Bobi’s wife), and Moses Bwayo attend the Motion Picture Academy’s 14th Annual Governors Awards.

Bwayo and Sharp said in a statement, “We are thrilled audiences in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco will have another chance to watch the film in theaters and to learn more about what’s happening in Uganda.”

The directors added, “As documentary filmmakers, we were fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to relate events that can bring about transformation. Our goal in making this film was to create an authentic representation, not just of the dramatic events unfolding in Uganda but also of the raw and genuine spirit of an inspiring group of people. In a world that presently feels more tyrannical than ever, where truth has become expendable. We have a duty to celebrate those who stand against violence and offer hope in the face of autocracy.”

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