How bobby wine musician fights tyranny with love

The documentary “Bobi Wine: Ghetto President,” which premieres out of competition at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, focuses on a man’s quest for freedom and justice for his country, but at the heart of the film is a love story. diverse He talks to the filmmakers, unveils the trailer, the first time any video has been released.

The film, directed by Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo, and produced by Sharp and Academy Award winner John Patsek, follows musician Bobby Wayne’s attempt to overthrow the repressive regime of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

Sharp has a personal relationship with Uganda: he and his father were born there, and spent a large part of his childhood in the country. He met Wayne, whose real name is Robert Kiagulani, in 2017, after the musician became a Member of Parliament.

“He just excited me: his optimism, his determination, his courage. And then, his wonderful wife, Barbie… I felt like I had never met anyone like them before,” he says. “I spent time with him and Barbie, and I said, ‘We just have to make a movie about you guys. “

Sharp started the project with British photographer Sam Benstead, who decided to quit after a short period of time, and Benstead was replaced by Italian photographer Michele Sipiloni, who also quit. Finally, Sharp was introduced to Bwayo, who stuck to the mission to the end, at great personal cost to himself. “Because of the system and how far they go with torture and intimidation, and because of some of these issues, these guys weren’t able to continue with the project,” Boyu says of his predecessors.

“Bobi and Barbie have given us full access,” Sharp says. There was literally nothing they wouldn’t let us film. We shot thousands of hours of footage, and then spent two years in the cutting room trying to shoot the movie we were going to make.”

The film follows Wine as he steps up his campaign against Museveni, culminating in his bid for the presidency itself in the elections held in January 2021. Along the way, he and his supporters in the National Unity Platform party, part of what Wine called the “people power” movement were subjected to arrests and assaults frequent. The police and military crackdown on anti-government protests has resulted in dozens of deaths.

The centerpiece of the film’s story is Wayne’s relationship with his wife, Barbie, and their children. “Obviously we wanted to give Barbie and the kids as much space as possible. We didn’t want it just some kind of political drama about another despot. We wanted it to be more personal,” Sharp says.

This decision meant that the documentary was less difficult than it could have been.

When Bobby saw the movie, he said, ‘You made it not look that bad. “There’s very little violence in it,” Sharp says. “We filmed people who had their fingers cut off, their tongues cut off, their eyes gouged out, and their beatings. In the end, we made the decision to really tell the story through Bobby and Barbie and these people around them. We thought this would be more impactful, but it does nothing to show how brutal it is. [the regime is] And how so many bad things happen to so many people around us [Bobi and Barbie]. ”

Sharp expresses appreciation for Boayo, who said he was “amazing” and “put himself in great danger.” But Puyo prefers to express his gratitude for the opportunity to tell this story. “It has been an amazing journey, and I must say, it has been a blessing to be a part of this because I believe the Bobi Wine and People Power movement came at a time when Uganda needed a voice like his,” he says. “Bobi Wine really appeals to the largest part of the population, which is the youth.” More than 77% of Uganda’s population is under the age of 30.

He adds: “The population [overall] persecuted for a long time. They felt that they had no voice and no place in politics. [the country is] Economically divided now. They feel that, yes, he speaks on their behalf and advocates for them.”

Although Boayo is familiar with wine and his wife - “I learned that, yes, this is actually a story worth telling, and I fell in love with Bobby and Barbie, and their story,” he says—he has stayed away from the campaign itself, though that didn’t save him from paying the price for his association with them.

“From the beginning, it was a very conscious decision not to become an activist, or to become a story myself,” he says. “But that being said, in fact, things have happened to me myself. I mean, I’m in LA now. I can’t live in Uganda anymore because of this movie. Not in a bad way. I appreciate the fact that I’m a part of this movie, and it’s a sacrifice, And a very conscious decision you made. Because change doesn’t come easy. There must be sacrifices and to be honest, if you want to be a car [for change]if you want to participate in the change … Of course, you cannot be reckless, but you have to put your life on the line or [put yourself] in these situations to make a difference in places like Africa and Uganda.”

He said that explicit threats to Bouyeo were “many,” but that he had also been physically assaulted and arrested. He and his wife are in the process of applying for asylum in the US “We can no longer live in Uganda. I was shot in the face. I was arrested. I was locked up for a few days. I was chased and intimidated.”

However, he considers himself lucky as no snapshots have been posted yet. “Fortunately, when we were making this movie, we didn’t come out with anything [online or on television]. So, that kept me really safe, because the system didn’t really see anything.”

However, the term “safe” in Uganda is a relative term. “Journalists, and anyone in Uganda working to expose the regime, you are a direct threat to the establishment,” he adds. As such, they are vulnerable to intimidation and abuse. “I mean, I myself got hit in the face. If it wasn’t for the camera I was holding in front of me, I might have lost my eye. Only here [he points to a scar]. My jaw will break, or… I don’t know. He added that he was shot on November 6, 2020, and arrested around the end of February, the beginning of March 2020. “Musa and Bobby and all these guys are brave off the scale,” Sharp says.

Boyu says he had the opportunity to leave the project but chose to continue. “I realized more and more that I needed to say something as a Ugandan, and I needed to be a part of this time. Bobby represents a revolution, right?”

He points to “the chaos of the state” and the military’s willingness to shoot people who dare to protest in the street, as they did when Wayne was arrested on November 18, 2019. “People have lost their lives, [including] Women, children, people who weren’t actually on the streets to protest. So, suppression is really at a point where you choose to either… do or die, you know? “

Bwayo took such keen interest in getting the shots out of the country that he sent a trip to Sharp every two weeks via friends. “I was going to get several [memory] Cards while filming, and I keep them in places where they can’t find them. At first I didn’t keep the picture with me. I would give it to other people, and people would travel to get it to Chris. And the internet in Uganda is very bad, so it was very difficult to send it online. There was intimidation as well, so even people I knew were avoiding me, so there were very few people in my circles you could trust.”

Sharp was traveling in and out of Uganda himself, and took on all of the filming outside the country, including Wayne’s trips to Paris, Berlin, and New York.

As mentioned earlier, at the center of the film is the love story between Wayne and his wife, but this was not the plan at the beginning of filming. “I came out of the cutting room to be honest. We didn’t really want to just get into a political struggle: that kind of brave man standing up to a dictator,” Sharp says. Pain is through them, rather than showing people whose fingers have been cut off. And I felt more touched. The biggest goal for me and Moses is that we just want people to realize what’s really going on.”

In January 2021, Ugandan election officials declared Museveni the winner of the presidential contest with 59% of the vote, and Wine with 35%, although Wayne alleges widespread vote fraud.

Sharp also claims that the election was rigged. Neither the Americans could send monitors, nor the European Union. All journalists attended. They said: This is cheating. This man was robbed, the people of Uganda were robbed.

Western leaders’ reaction to the repression has been muted, and the United States and the European Union continue to provide millions of dollars to the Ugandan government in aid. Where this money ends up is a moot point. The fact that Museveni sent thousands of soldiers to Somalia made him a potential ally of the West in the region, which may influence how seriously they defy his brutal behavior at home.

Boyo says the military is key to Museveni’s grip on power. “The army is like a tool [Museveni] To protect himself from the people, the longer he entrenched himself in power, the longer he could become a problem for the region, and for the world itself.

So I hope people will see that this government is not one that can be trusted. For a long time, he’s been saying things and promising things that don’t happen. Uganda is not a democracy. It is a fake democracy. They are organizing elections, not in order to hold elections, but just to show the world that there is democracy, but it is not.”

“Bobby feels let down by the West because he’s in favor of democracy, and is doing everything right,” Sharp says. And he really believed that the West would stand behind him. And they didn’t. He’s an optimistic guy, so he picks himself up. But it was a huge disappointment [Bobi and Barbie], because he thought that people would actually be happy with a democratic process, and he thought that would be important. It didn’t happen, and it was difficult for him.”

He adds, “When Bobby saw the movie, he said, ‘It made him so sad.'” [I replied:] “Bobby, it’s sad. You won the election and you got robbed. All your friends were locked up in military custody for six months. A lot of your friends died, they suffered, and it’s sad. We can’t spin it any other way. We just have to say it like it is.” I’m left standing and going, but we can’t make it a happy ending, because it’s not a happy ending.”