General Idi Amin Dada / The Official Story

Friday | August 3, 2007 7:00 pm

General Idi Amin Dada

Directed by Barbet Schroeder

The Official Story

Directed by Luis Puenzo

Screening on Film

This unique pairing examines the ways in which cinema becomes a powerful tool to create and critique propaganda. Idi Amin gave full access to director Barbet Schroeder for his documentary portrait of the Ugandan dictator. The result is a disturbing yet darkly comic study of one of history’s most notorious figures. In The Official Story, a private school teacher unwittingly adheres to the state sanctioned version of Argentine history using textbooks approved by the government. She comes to realize that her adopted daughter may be the offspring of one of the “disappeared” – 30,000 people who vanished at the hands of a military junta who overtook the country in 1976 – and discovers the larger impact of this tragic genocide.

PROGRAM

General Idi Amin Dada

Directed by Barbet Schroeder.
France, 1978, 35mm, color, 107 min.
The Official Story (La Historia Official)

Directed by Luis Puenzo.
With Norma Aleandro, Hector Alterio, Analia Castro.
Argentina, 1985, 35mm, color, 110 min.
Spanish with English subtitles.